<span style="font-size: 14.6667px;">The Pathology Department at the Aga Khan University Hospital held its first ever Infectious Disease Symposium under the theme “Infectious Diseases: An update in Diagnosis and Treatment”. The event was attended by clinicians and medical students from the hospital and other institutions.</span><br style="font-size: 14.6667px;"/><br style="font-size: 14.6667px;"/><span style="font-size: 14.6667px;">Speakers at the function including medical specialists from Aga Khan University Hospital, Nairobi, Aga Khan University, Karachi and University of Nairobi conducted interactive sessions with the audience. In addition exhibitors provided information on drugs for treatment of infectious diseases.</span><br style="font-size: 14.6667px;"/><br style="font-size: 14.6667px;"/><span style="font-size: 14.6667px;">Some of the topics discussed at the symposium included Histology and Cytology in the diagnosis of infectious diseases, blood-borne viruses like Hepatitis C and B and their treatments, antiretroviral therapy for HIV/AIDS patients and Central Nervous System infections.</span><br style="font-size: 14.6667px;"/><br style="font-size: 14.6667px;"/><span style="font-size: 14.6667px;">Dr Geoffrey Omuse, Clinical Pathologist at Aga Khan University Hospital and a member of the symposium organizing committee said, “We are happy to have our first annual infectious disease symposium. In the past we have been participating in forums which have been organized by other institutions and ours is an attempt to supplement these efforts. Infectious diseases still remain major causes of morbidity and mortality throughout the world and particularly in sub-Saharan Africa.”</span><br style="font-size: 14.6667px;"/><br style="font-size: 14.6667px;"/><span style="font-size: 14.6667px;">“Our aim in organising this symposium was to update clinicians on the recent advances in diagnosis and therapy of infections in particular those that pose unique challenges. Treatment of bacterial infections for example is becoming increasingly difficult because of the growing prevalence of multi-drug resistant organisms. This makes accurate and timely diagnosis by the doctors a priority.”</span><br style="font-size: 14.6667px;"/><br style="font-size: 14.6667px;"/><span style="font-size: 14.6667px;">“We encourage clinicians to carry out relevant laboratory tests to help achieve accurate diagnosis. Over reliance on clinical diagnosis is not advisable since many diseases have similar symptoms. Use of appropriate radiology services can also help the clinician in arriving at the correct diagnosis,” concluded Dr Omuse.</span><br style="font-size: 14.6667px;"/><br style="font-size: 14.6667px;"/>