Delegates denounce ‘outrageous’ travel problems and call for meetings to be held in welcoming countries
A number of developing country delegates struggled to obtain visas to attend two public health conferences in France this month, reviving calls for such meetings to be held in more accessible locations.
Visa problems hampered Africans travelling to Paris for the biennial forum of the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP) last week, as well as The Union World Conference on Lung Health, the global conference on tuberculosis and lung disease taking place from 15-18 November.
Organisers of The Union conference said last week that the reports were “disturbing” as they had done all they could to support visa applications, “including emailing embassies about the urgent need to issue visas and supporting documentation”.
Earlier this year, the International Aids Society announced that it would begin to rotate its conferences geographically after its 2022 conference in Canada saw numerous delegates, particularly from Africa, unable to secure visas to travel.
‘Expensive and time-consuming’
Frustrated delegates took to social media ahead of the two conferences to voice their concerns.
Jayne Sutherland, head of TB research at the Medical Research Council/London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine unit in The Gambia, said three of her study clinicians had been unable to travel to The Union meeting. Two of them were due to give oral presentations.
“So disappointing for everyone involved. Not to mention expensive and time consuming as the only place to apply was Dakar, a 10 hour drive from here,” she wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on 13 November. She later confirmed that she had been unable to travel.
Rosheen Sungeni Mthawanji, a mosquito virology PhD student from Malawi, said she had been denied a visa to attend the EDCTP conference, despite being fully sponsored and submitting all the required documents. “It doesn’t make sense and it’s so annoying,” she wrote on X.
Stephen Shikoli, a coordinator of TB community health workers in Kenya and a scheduled speaker at The Union conference, also posted about his visa denial, attaching a picture of an 80 euro receipt for his visa application fee. “Communities matter if we are to end TB,” he wrote.
Calling consulates
African delegates even struggled to secure initial meetings with their regional French consulates to submit their visa applications.
In September, Toyin Togun, a TB researcher at the MRC/LSTHM unit in The Gambia, posted a letter he’d sent to the French consulate in Senegal urging it to respond to requests for visa application appointments for four of his colleagues.
He was not alone. Beate Kampmann, who leads vaccine research at the MRC/LSHTM unit, wrote that she’d had the same problems with colleagues in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Togun told Research Professional News this week that all four of his colleagues had managed to attend the conferences. “I guess the embassy call worked,” he said.
But he added that the global health community needs to “do better” in choosing where to hold conferences. “It’s sad to see the number of colleagues from Africa who are still being denied visas to attend.”
The Union’s conference organisers said next year’s meeting would be held in a low- and middle-income country. “We hope this will ease the visa process,” they said.
