From: Secretary General on behalf of APACPH KL Conference Committee
To: Colleagues from APACPH member universities and conference participants
We regret to inform you that the 40th APACPH conference to be held in Hanoi has been cancelled due to very unfortunate circumstances. The reasons are briefly explained below. However, the good news is that the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Malaya has very kindly agreed to host a reprogrammed conference from November 7 ‐ 9 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This rearranged conference will cover the original conference theme of Injury Prevention and other important public health issues. We shall advise more details of this conference in the coming weeks and on our website.
For successful participants whose abstracts were selected for the conference in Hanoi, we hope you will continue to participate in the KL conference with your presentation as planned. If you have already registered for the Hanoi meeting and wish to attend the conference in Kuala Lumpur, we hope to transfer your registration fee and we will advise you on this. You also have the option of transferring your registration fee to the Asia‐Pacific Injury Prevention Conference or having your registration fee refunded back to you by filling in the attached form.
Background to Cancellation of 40th APACPH Conference Hosted by Hanoi School of Public Health As you might be aware, the APACPH Conference and the 2nd Asia‐Pacific Injury Prevention conference were both developed as a joint conference. APACPH had sponsored the conference and supported our member institution Hanoi School of Public Health (HSPH) to take on the hosting role. We were only advised a few weeks ago that the World Health Organization Vietnam (VN WHO) raised the issue of nationality of the President APACPH, who is also the President of a leading Medical University in Taiwan and one of the leading researchers and authorities on Injury Prevention in Asia, excluded from participation at key conference events such as the Conference Opening Ceremony, and that has led to the decision by Vietnam Ministry of Health (VN MOH) to split the join conference into two separated ones. Seeking to compromise, a high‐level 5‐person APACPH delegation team visited Hanoi to appeal against this discriminatory treatment and to seek a reasonable compromise. However, the suggested options did not meet our requirements for the 40th APACPH Conference to provide sufficient visibility and importance to our leadership and members with adequate time and opportunities to participate. This was the case even though there were many more abstracts submitted for the APACPH Conference as compared to the WHO‐sponsored Injury Prevention Conference.
It is clear to us that the Hanoi School of Public Health is in no way responsible for what has transpired and it should be pointed out that they have worked tirelessly to assure that our conference will be a success, whether in Hanoi or elsewhere.
We regret any inconvenience that this sudden change of time and venue for the 40th APACPH Conference may cause for any of our members and conference participants. We do hope to see you in Kuala Lumpur at what we expect to be a successful conference. We shall send more information and details in the coming days.
Yours sincerely,
Walter Patrick, Secretary‐General
on behalf of:
Tomiko Hokama, President‐Elect
Walter Patrick, Secretary‐General
Brian Oldenburg, Honorary Secretary
Ian Rouse, Honorary Treasurer
Phitaya Charupoonphol, Regional Director (SE Asia)
Andy Johnson, Regional Director (Americas)
