January 29th, 2022

Symposium “SWOS 21 year, grown and matured” is a belated held activity due to the restrictions of the COVID pandemic. With this symposium, which was held in the garden of the location called Rumhuis in Paramaribo, the board of the SWOS commemorated the fact that the SWOS was founded on January 5^th, 2000 by Marja Y. van Eer en Stephen G.S. Vreden. The aim of the SWOS is the stimulation and advancement of scientific research in general, especially medical scientific research.

During the hybrid event the chair of the board, Dr. S. Vreden, explained the audience how SWOS was founded and led by ”Research on demand”, that means activities initiated guided by actual health problems in Suriname.

Ethnical differences in cardiovascular risk factors and malaria were the first topics for research.

Research concerning malaria expanded to an international level as it included evaluation of anti-malarial drugs.

International collaboration is also the case in the since 2012 ongoing research concerning genotyping of hepatitis viruses. Recently a program for the elimination of viral hepatitis was initiated under auspices of the SWOS.

An investigation of histoplasmosis among HIV patient was done with investigators in French Guyana. Also investigations of the innate immunity after Zika and a seroprevelance study of COVID-19 gave us insight in how these infections behave in Suriname.

The secretary of the board, Marja Y van Eer, M.D., described the vision of the future of SWOS. She emphasized that although challenges like financial constraints, a lack of scientific framework and also the COVID-19 pandemic reduce the opportunities to perform scientific investigation, the SWOS will continue to take bold steps concerning the improvement of quality of scientific investigation. This by focusing on ethnical principles in scientific research, on developing a vision on scientific research in a poor resource setting like Suriname and by keep monitoring according to the Global code of conduct for research in poor resource settings, especially when partnering with organizations from developed countries (www.globalcodeofconduct.org).

Terrence Mawie, M.D. presented a scientific investigation under the title: Working towards elimination of viral hepatitis in Suriname. Under supervision of the SWOS and in collaboration with the Surinamese Ministry of Health he coordinates the activities which must lead to reach the goal set by the WHO for global hepatitis elimination in 2030. Education of the population, building awareness’ and detecting persons with active viral hepatitis is the aim of the project. Detected persons with active viral hepatitis will be referred to get cured.  

Dr. Helene Hiwat showed the results of 22 years of work on the field of malaria, work in which the SWOS collaborated with the government of Suriname. Under the title Malaria in Suriname 2020-2022: from control to elimination, she described how challenges were tackled by introducing impregnated bed nets, introduction of artesemine based drugs and a special focus on new malaria control strategies in mobile populations  based on self-diagnosis and self-treatment have led to control of malaria and to the elimination of malaria falciparum in Suriname.

The board of the SWOS looks back to a useful symposium during which plenty of information concerning the vision and work of the SWOS was shared.