The following very preliminary plans have been developed by Kosta Y. Mumcuoglu who was elected as Program Chairperson for ICP4 at the business session of ICP3. At this meeting it was decided that the next congress would be held in Turkey in 2010.
- After discussions with our colleagues in Turkey, who are representative of several universities in Turkey, as well as the Turkish Parasitology Society, I propose the following program for ICP4 and request comments and the approval of the program by the phthirapterists.
- The local organizing committee will include the following members: list
- It should be decided who will be in the International Organizing Committee, Award committee, Fund Raising Committee and Scientific Committee. I suggest that at least one member of each committee be from Israel or Turkey.
- The conference will be under the patronage of different Turkish and international institutions/societies; including ISoP; Turkish Parasitological Society; Israel Society for Parasitology, Protozoology and Tropical Diseases; Ege University (Izmir); Cumhuriyet University (Sivas); Erciyes University (Kayseri) and the Refik Saydam National Hygiene Center (Ankara) (all links to English language pages)
- We intend to invite and pay for the participation of 4-8 leading phthirapterists, as well as 2-6 students from developing countries, who are not able to pay their trip to Turkey and their participation in ICP4
- The registration fee will be approximately US$ 200 for regular members and US$ 100 for students, while late registration will be US$ 250 for regular members and US$ 150 for students
- We expect that approximately 200 phthirapterists will participate in this congress
- The congress will take in the month of September or October 2010. National and religious holidays will be taken into consideration
- During this period, the weather is very agreeable and the prices of hotels and airline tickets are lower than during the tourist season.
- The venue of the conference will be a 4-5 star hotel in either Urgup or Goreme. The two localities are in the middle of Cappadocia (map), and have all the necessary facilities, including hotels, restaurants and public transport. In the hotel, there will be rooms for oral and poster presentations, computers, projectors, restaurants, Internet access, registration desks and places for exhibitions/companies (tourism, pharmaceutical, biological)
- Pre- and post-conference trips will be organized. A one-day trip to visit the most attractive places in Cappadocia, will be an integral part of the conference
- Rooms/meetings for the executive committee members and for the general assembly will also be organized
- For the organization of the conference, a company specializing in the organization of congress/conference will be hired. This company will be responsible for the organization of hotels, pre- and post-congress tours, technical details (registration, computers, expositions, internet, the abstracts, etc)
- A simultaneous translation from Turkish to English and from English to Turkish will be available
- Unexpected events and conditions during the coming four years might oblige us to alter somehow the proposed program.
With phthirapterological regards
Kosta Y. Mumcuoglu
[Cappadocia is 4 hours by bus from Ankara. The airport code for Ankara is ESB. 