World Aspergillosis Day 2021
World Aspergillosis Day (Feb 1st every year) progresses every year and this year was no exception.
Social Media
We are only partway through the social media activity so this number will rise but as of the end of the day on 1st Feb the #WorldAspergillosisDay hashtag was shared 4.9k times & achieved an incredible reach of 806.6k - so up to that point over 800 000 people had seen content tagged with #WorldAspergillosisDay.
Medical Mycology involvement
Medical doctors are probably one of the most important groups we need to reach to be able to influence awareness of aspergillosis and to #ThinkFungus. We are extremely impressed that Medical Mycology groups in France, Brazil, Vietnam and Ghana held highly informative meetings on aspergillosis attended by hundreds of people, all in support of World Aspergillosis Day. Doctors and scientists from 4 different continents of the world have learned about aspergillosis, when to look for it, how to look for it, how to treat it. This is a step-change in awareness worldwide.
In the UK a major Wellcome Trust funded group met on World Aspergillosis Day on Zoom to discuss future aspergillosis research projects,
Patient Involvement
The National Aspergillosis Centre patients groups staged a session entitled 'Shortening the Patients Journey' designed to draw out and identify those aspects of the patient's journey undergone before they were diagnosed with aspergillosis. For some it was relatively quick - only a year or two in one case, but for most, it is a long journey with an ill-defined start, a series of stages in the dark with many twists and turns before they finally reach the end and are treated for aspergillosis, usually with very positive results that improve patient quality of life, sometimes markedly.
The Aspergillosis Trust, a patients advocate group generated lots of interest too, with supporters tweeting from all over the world.
The National Aspergillosis Centre CARES team devised a memorable contribution to make the day for their creative patients and carers - Aspergillusocks!
Pharmaceutical Industry Educational Involvement
Pfizer, who manufacture voriconazole can up with this informative graphic to mark World Aspergillosis Day.
World Aspergillosis Day, 1 February 2021
World Aspergillosis Day is almost upon us!
The aim of World Aspergillosis Day is to raise awareness of this fungal infection that like several other fungal infections worldwide is often under-diagnosed. Diagnosis of aspergillosis is difficult and requires specialist expertise (eg UK National Aspergillosis Centre, a European Confederation of Medical Mycology Cente of Excellence), but it also frequently occurs alongside much more common illnesses such as asthma, tuberculosis, COPD. Fungal nodules occasionally get mistaken for lung tumours.
To mark WAD 2021 the National Aspergillosis Centre will hold a symposium for patients & carers. The theme is ‘Shortening the Patient Journey’ and we will hold a discussion on everyone’s journey to getting am aspergillosis diagnosis. We will try to identify how we can all help shorten the journey.
There will also be a chance to contribute to what the list of research aims as defined by patients and carers should be. We aim to get our researchers to add some of them to their projects.
The event will be held on Zoom and will be free to attend. If you would like to join us on the day, you can access the details via Facebook.
Or by emailing [email protected]
There are a number of activities happening on the day, you can find out more here.