2021 HAEi virtual regional workshop South America & Mexico, Central America & Caribbean

The biannual HAE Global Conference has been an excellent opportunity for people with HAE to meet, exchange experiences, and learn from each other over the years.

Following the 2018 HAE Global Conference in Vienna, Austria, organizing a workshop for fellow Latin American patients was a must. Originally the plan was to hold the first-ever HAEi Regional Workshop for South America and Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean as an in-person event. However, due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, it was decided to go with a virtual meeting instead.

The 2021 HAEi Virtual Regional Workshop for Latin America was launched in March and was a great success. The 34 videos available on the workshop website featured presentations from experts, member organizations, and youngsters, all recorded in the local languages.

“Our goal was to make this regional workshop a welcoming and inclusive event, which is why each video has subtitles in Spanish, Portuguese, and English for our global audience. That certainly was a fun challenge for the team”, says HAEi Regional Patient Advocate for South America and Mexico, Fernanda de Oliveira Martins.

The four tracks of the virtual workshop – HAEi, Experts, Youngsters, and updates from Member organizations – creates a brilliant overview of the current HAE situation in the region. The workshop is opened with welcome messages from the HAEi Leadership and the two Regional Patient Advocates, Fernanda de Oliveira Martins for South America and Mexico and Javier Santana for Central America and the Caribbean, who worked tirelessly in putting this event together.

In the HAEi track, viewers can find presentations from President and CEO Anthony J. Castaldo and Executive Vice President and COO Henrik Balle Boysen on the topic of “Building foundations for a better future”, while the Chief Regional Patient Advocate Fiona Wardman talks about “HAE International’s Decentralized Approach in Practice”. The track also introduces the topic of ACARE centers (Angioedema Centers of Excellence and Reference) with the special participation of Professor Marcus Maurer and Anthony J. Castaldo. Member organizations and patients can also learn more about HAEi’s services and resources like Emergency cards, HAEi hosted websites, and HAEi Connect, that are available for member countries.

The Experts track contains four presentations from leading HAE physicians based in Latin America:

“Diagnosis of HAE” by Dr. Olga M. Barrera from Clínica Hospital San Fernando INASA in Panama City, Panama
“Clinical manifestations of HAE” by Dr. Margarita Olivares Gomez from Alergolica Clinica in Medellin, Colombia
“Treating HAE” by Dr. Anete Grumach from the ACARE center Faculdade de Medicina do ABC in São Paolo, Brazil
“The importance of ACARE centers – case of Peru” by Dr. Oscar Calderón from the ACARE center Clínica SANNA el Golf in Lima, Peru

Drs. Olga M. Barrera, Anete Grumach and Oscar Calderón also participates in a Q&A session.

In the Youngsters track, HAEi Youngsters’ Advisory Group members Nathan Galarraga and Isabel Brunkan introduce the youngsters community and talk about exciting upcoming projects to look out for.

In the final track, all 17 member organizations introduce their work and briefly talk about the current situation in their country: