In her welcome address at the Inaugural Session on Wednesday, 14 November, Union President E Jane Carter described the theme as fitting not only to describe the goal for global health programmes, but also as a description of The Union itself and how its members support and sustain each other.
Datuk Dr Lokman Sulaiman Bin Hakim, Deputy Director General Ministry of Health Malaysia, welcomed the delegates to his country; and Prof Lee Reichman gave the Sir John Crofton Memorial Lecture on "Timebomb Revisited Ten Years Later: Can we sustain progress or are we losing the war?" at this event.
At The 2012 Union Awards ceremony, those honoured were Dr David Dowdy (USA), who received The Union Young Investigator Prize; Dr Dick Menzies (Canada), who was awarded The Union Scientific Prize; and Dr Karin Weyer (South Africa), who received the Karel Styblo Public Health Prize.
The colourful Opening Ceremony included traditional dances performed by the dance troupe from the National Department of Culture and Arts. At the Welcome Cocktail that followed, delegates also had an opportunity to see demonstrations and participate in doing local arts and crafts, such as batik painting and pewter-smithing.
Between 13 and 17 November, the scientific programme involved presenters from 65 countries offering more than 150 postgraduate courses and workshops, symposia, plenary sessions, abstract-driven and poster-related sessions, meet-the-experts and a late-breaker session on TB research. Highlights of the week included the following:
The Stop TB Symposium (organised by the Stop TB Partnership and the World Health Organization) focused on "Accelerating Impact: Developing post-2015 TB Strategy and Targets". The Stop TB Kochon Prize was presented to the Desmond Tutu TB Centre in Cape Town, South Africa for their work on childhood TB as part of this daylong programme.
Plenary lectures were given by Prof Guy Marks (Australia) on "The Global Burden of Respiratory Disease"; Dr Sheila Tlou (Botswana) on"Preparing the Workforce for the Responsible Rollout of New Tools"; and Dr Anneke Hesseling (South Africa) on "Childhood TB: We need to do more".
At a press conference on Operational Research: Local Solutions, Global Impact, The Union and Médicins Sans Frontières presented their innovative approach to building capacity and finding health solutions for the poor through operational research and launched their new publication making the case for supporting OR programmes.
The Kuala Lumpur Civil Society Declaration on Tuberculosis was presented at the conference, calling for actions leading to zero TB deaths. Demonstrators with placards enlivened sessions on Wednesday and Saturday to raise awareness of this campaign.
Run for your lungs, sponsored by the Malaysian Association for the Prevention of Tuberculosis and The Union, was 1.5 km family fun run in the KLCC Park. More than 200 local children, families and conference delegates put on their running shoes to help build awareness of lung health.
For the first time, the programme ended with a Closing Ceremony that offered a wrap-up of the scientific outcomes of the conference. This new session was attended by a standing-room only crowd, who also enjoyed a Closing Cocktail.
Videos, photos and webcasts of most conference sessions may be found on the conference website or www.theunion.org