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At the VIIIth Meeting of European Leptospira Workers, July 11-13th, 1994, the International Leptospirosis Society (ILS) was established. The ILS was founded with the main aim to regularly organize international meetings on the field of leptospirosis. This was intended to substitute the European leptospirosis meetings that were increasingly attended by colleagues from all over the world. While the ILS has been very successful since in their aim, the new approach resulted in a strongly decreasing number of European participants and a marked reduction of attention for veterinary impacts of leptospirosis. Veterinary leptospirosis had been an issue of major importance at the European meetings, notably for colleagues from Middle and East Europe. To deal with this drawback, a meeting, named Eurolepto2012 was organized on 31 May – 2 June 2012, Dubrovnik, Croatia. The meeting was well attended, including by several veterinarian colleagues from Middle and East Europe. During this meeting, it was proposed to re-introduce a regular European leptospirosis meeting and for that matter to found a European Leptospirosis Society (ELS) focused on, but not exclusively dealing with, leptospirosis. ELS will organize meetings each three years. The next meeting is scheduled in April 2015, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. This poster will present detailed information on the organization, the aims, membership and the homepage of the ELS.

The phenomenon of poor-quality medicines in resource-limited settings is well documented, and field observations reveal similar problems with medical devices (MDs) and in vitro diagnostics (IVDs). In scientific literature, however, there are only scarce reports and documents providing evidence of quality problems of MDs or IVDs in resource-limited settings. This discrepancy may be ascribed to (i) the poor regulatory oversight of MDs/IVDs in resource-limited settings, (ii) a general lack of awareness of the problem of poor-quality MDs/IVDs amongst the scientific community and decision-makers, and (iii) poor quality assurance in diagnostic laboratories in resource-poor settings, precluding tracing quality problems of IVDs from the other potential causes of diagnostic inaccuracy. The problem of poor-quality MDs/IVDs in resource-limited settings is a complex one to address. Firstly, operational definitions for substandard and counterfeit MDs/IVDs are required, as well as ad hoc field surveys, to ensure proper appraisal of the real extent of the problem. Investments are needed to reinforce the national regulatory oversights on MDs/IVDs in resource-limited settings, and to encourage a proactive and transparent exchange of information between Northern and Southern regulatory authorities. Industrialized countries can play a role by expanding and strengthening their regulatory oversight and quality labels to those MDs/IVDs that are frequently used in resource-poor settings. Hopefully, the combination of these measures will result in better protection of patients in resource-poor countries from the effects of being exposed to poor-quality MDs and IVDs. ispartof: Tropical Medicine & International Health vol:16 issue:11 pages:1439-1449 ispartof: location:England status: published