World Allergy Organization

2008-2009 Presidential Mandate

  1. Strengthen the Pillars of WAO: Science, Education, Advocacy
  2. Deepen WAO's relationship with other Scientific Societies worldwide.
  3. Exploit web technology and the WAO web site (www.worldallergy.org)
    ("We should reach every allergist in the world")
  4. Empower The World Allergy Organization Journal
  5. WAO Surveys as a leading new initiative
  6. Make World Allergy Congress 2009 the most successful and profitable to date

Dear Friends,

Innovation in Continuity 2008 - the WAO year in focus
2007 drew to a lively close with the highly successful World Allergy Congress in Bangkok, and 2008 started with our new Board and Officers welcoming even greater and more exciting opportunities! The Presidential mandate for 2008-2009 is Innovation in Continuity, with WAO building upon and enhancing ongoing activities to foster research, education and training in allergy, and focusing continual global attention on the importance of the allergist as the key coordinator of allergy patient care.

WAO takes its role as an umbrella organization seriously: All programs and initiatives strive to be global in scope and reach, work through collaborations and partnerships, provide venues and forums for international knowledge sharing and networking, and try to reach and work with emerging regions. So, what does success look like?

1. Strengthen the Pillars of WAO: Science, Education, Advocacy
WAO's Councils and Committees are the vehicles that drive the education, research, training and advocacy agenda of the organization.

Worldwide Education
WAO continued to support junior scholars through WAO long and short-term research fellowships, with particular emphasis on research projects comparing allergic disease in individuals from different ethnic population groups. The WAO/Nycomed Research Fellowships supported international research placements for eight young clinicians to learn new research or clinical technique. We thank the host centers for their support of these programs.

Worldwide Science and Education

  • GLORIA™ international placements were hosted by member societies in Singapore, the Philippines, Georgia, Honduras and India; the GLORIA US program, in association with the ACAAI, organized 13 placements at regional and local allergy society meetings. Click to visit GLORIA.
  • WAO Seminars & Conferences placements were hosted by South Africa, Mongolia, Argentina and Italy. Click for more information.
  • If you didn't make it to one of the two World Allergy Forum symposia during 2008 (at AAAAI Annual Meeting and the EAACI Congress), see the abstracts and slides on the WAO Web site WAF section.

Worldwide Advocacy
Supporting and promoting the specialty of allergy worldwide, WAO published two new position statements,

  • "What is an allergist? A position statement of the WAO Specialty and Training Council." Available at www.waojournal.org. To access Journal, please go first to www.worldallergy.org.
  • "Requirements for physician competencies in allergy: key clinical competencies appropriate for the care of patients with allergic or immunologic diseases-a position statement of the World Allergy Organization." Available at: www.waojournal.org. To access Journal, please go first to www.worldallergy.org.

I encourage you to use and cite these publications as often as possible.

Worldwide Advocacy and Consensus
As a global, umbrella organization, WAO also brings together key players to work toward providing consensus on important topics in allergy.

Epinephrine: "Epinephrine: the drug of choice for anaphylaxis" was published in Allergy this Summer, and reproduced as a supplement in the WAO Journal (Click for PDF of Supplement)

Cow's Milk Allergy: Work is well under way by the new WAO Food Allergy Special Committee on a global Consensus on Cow's Milk Allergy Diagnosis and Management.

SLIT Global Consensus: Delivery of immunotherapy by the sub-lingual (SLIT) route is an exciting therapeutic strategy, gradually being adopted by allergy communities throughout the world. Following a first meeting in Genoa in November 2008 to review experience of US trials of SLIT, WAO is hosting a meeting in Paris in January 2009 to develop the first global consensus on SLIT. All Regional & Affiliate Member Societies are sending representative delegates to this meeting; delegates are also representing organizations such as the US-NIH, GA2LEN, EFA, ICPRG, and ARIA. 30 National Member Societies have already confirmed that they will be sending representative observers. Results from the two meetings will be published in JACI, the WAO Journal, and Allergy.

Worldwide Science, Education & Advocacy
The Emerging Societies Program reaches out to allergists and physicians who care for patients with allergy in countries where no formal allergy society exists or allergy as a specialty is still emerging. 2008 saw the successful first WAO allergy training school in Venezuela, where General Practitioners from the local region were offered training by local and international allergists as the first step in creating a collaborative allergy care network.

Continuing with the success of the program in Venezuela, WAO has launched a new collaboration with the ACAAI, EAACI, and AAAAI to host a World Allergy Training School (WATS) for the Middle-East / Northern Africa Region at the First Middle East-Asia Allergy Asthma Immunology Congress (MEAAAIC) in Dubai, UAE, March 2009. WATS will work to develop learning communities, appropriate to a specific regional context, in order to help build sustainable capacity in the field of allergy. Existing knowledge and skills will be developed, and local experts will be encouraged to apply this knowledge to develop further the specialty of allergy and to widen the provision of patient care.

2. Deepen WAO's relationship with other Scientific Societies worldwide.
Partnerships with other scientific societies flourished in 2008:

  • WAO contributed to the GA2LEN/GAIN project developing Web-based educational materials on anaphylaxis, and a poster on the emergency management of anaphylaxis for display in European Emergency Rooms.
  • WAO representatives contributed to the EAACI guidelines meeting on Urticaria to expand the document into a global recommendation.
  • WAO and GARD are collaborating on a global survey of allergy diagnostic methods, preparatory to the development of inexpensive allergy diagnostic tools.
  • WAO will be working with IPCRG to develop an Immunotherapy document for GPs
  • Interasma hosted the WAO Board meeting in November 2008, with WAO experts contributing to the Interasma scientific program.
  • The SLIT Consensus Project brings together several scientific organizations

3. Exploit web technology and the WAO web site (www.worldallergy.org) ("We should reach every allergist in the world")

The WAO web site continues to make available easy, worldwide access to knowledge and information. Over the year, new programs and opportunities on the WAO web site were continually added, and the use of the site greatly increased.

In the Allergic Diseases Resource Center (ADRC), several synopses were contributed on topics essential for practicing allergists and immunologists:

WAO Expert Interviews grew with numerous conversations:

WAO initiated distance learning this year with two successful webinars. Speakers gave lectures from Florida, USA as their audiences watched, listened, and interacted from Genoa, Italy (at the Highlights in Allergy and Respiratory Disease conference and Monte Carlo, Monaco (at the World Congress on Asthma). Webinars are available at: www.worldallergy.org/educational_programs/webinars.php.

4. Empower The World Allergy Organization Journal
The new WAO Journal was launched in January 2008 as an online only publication. It is the only allergy journal to be fully online, and it is free to WAO members through the WAO web site. By providing easy and free access worldwide, the WAO Journal covers a broad spectrum of the interdisciplinary field of both research and clinical practice in allergy and immunology. It is an important tool in the larger effort of improved patient care delivery and the quality of life of allergy patients around the world. The Journal will be indexed retroactively and we look forward to receiving your papers for publication!

As an online-only peer-reviewed journal, the publication process is swift. New articles are posted each month on schedule. Please sign up at the Journal web site and the WAO Journal contents will be delivered to your email in-box as soon as the new articles are posted.

The first State of World Allergy Report - SOWAR - appeared in the WAO Journal in June 2008 SOWAR stresses the importance of providing national allergy services for the burgeoning numbers of allergy patients in the World, and this downloadable on-line resource provides a useful tool for allergists and allergy societies wishing to improve local allergy service provision.

5. WAO Surveys as a leading new initiative
WAO's federal structure provides an excellent network for global surveys that are used to better connect the worldwide field of allergy and propose consensus.

In 2007, the WAO Special Committee on Anaphylaxis conducted an international survey on the availability of epinephrine auto-injectors worldwide. The second phase of the project includes a 2008 survey of member societies reporting on how anaphylaxis is diagnosed and treated in healthcare settings in their respective countries. These combined results will become the basis of the WAO international guidelines for the assessment and management of anaphylaxis publication, which will launch at WAC 2009.

The Asthma Special Committee will collaborate with GARD and WHO to develop surveys on the prevalence, diagnosis and management of severe asthma, and asthma diagnosis and management in developing countries. The new Drug Allergy Special Committee is developing surveys on in-vivo methods used in the diagnosis of allergic reactions to major drug classes, and on harmonization of common procedures for allergy testing to beta-lactam antibiotics. The Evidence Based Medicine and Methodology Special Committee is preparing a survey to establish educational needs in EBM for an evidence based medicine workshop during WAC 2009. In collaboration with regional and global allergy and respiratory organizations, the WAO Climate Change and Allergy Special Committee is piloting a survey to ascertain the extent of the effect of climate change on allergen prevalence and disease expression. Clinical Trials in Allergy and Clinical Immunology Special Committee is developing a survey to investigate the value of creating a global network of allergy research centers in association with GA2LEN and EAACI.

6. Make World Allergy Congress 2009 the most successful and profitable to date
I invite you to join us in Buenos Aires, Argentina, for WAO's biennial World Allergy Congress (WAC), 6 - 10 December, 2009.

Allergic diseases affect hundreds-of-millions of people throughout the world, and the prevalence is increasing, impacting the public health of all nations. Ongoing research provides new information that can be applied to the daily practice of medicine. That is why every two years, the WAC is the most exciting international congress gathering of allergists and other related specialties from all over the world.

Mark Your Calendars: 11 May 2009 is deadline for submitting abstracts and early registration. You can do both at www.worldallergy2009.com.

The only way to end this note is to say that yes, I do believe we have had a very successful year in meeting WAO's objectives, and I extend my sincere thanks to all the Officers and Board of Directors, WAO's Council, Committee, and Special Committee Chairs and members, to our Journal Editors and Editorial Board, our Web Editorial Board, and our staff; without your hard work none of this would have been possible!

Best wishes for the New Year,

Ciao,

G. Walter Canonica
President, World Allergy Organization
December 2008


World Allergy Organization

 

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