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Natalio Fejerman
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I have been working in coordination with Peter Berry, the
Administrative Director, and his office to prepare a new
edition of the Annual Report with changes in design
and colours to coincide with the new ILAE logo. Besides its
new look, this Annual Report includes also two feature articles
written by the Chairs of the Commissions of Neurosurgery
and Therapeutic Strategies respectively and the text of the
most recent Constitution & Bylaws. We thought that we
were going to have it ready by the beginning of 2005, but
it took more time than anticipated and with the next International
Epilepsy Congress so close, the Executive Committee decided
to present it in Paris. In fact, we thought that it would
be good to have a report on the website every year and a
printed version every other year to coincide with ILAE´s
International Congresses. Since very important news could
not be ignored, we asked the President, Treasurer, Global
Campaign Chair and International Director of Meetings to
update their reports to May 2005. So, you will see reports
of the Commissions and Task Forces pertaining to 2004 and
reports of the mentioned officers more updated. I thought
that since the distribution of this report is going to take
place at the end of August 2005 in Paris, we needed to inform
about the process and the results of the recent elections
of Officers of the Executive Committee. Let me then join
Dr. Avanzini in his congratulations to the next President
of ILAE, Dr. Peter Wolf and send also my best whishes to
Drs. Frederick Andermann, Martin Brodie, Solomon Moshe and
Emilio Perucca as the newly-elected officers.
With the change in delivery date, I had a problem to solve:
what do we call this Annual Report? 2004 or 2005? I think
it is better to entitle it 2004 because the real report of
2005 activities should have updated information provided
by each Chair of Commissions and Task Forces at the end of
their terms regarding their projects, activities and achievements.
This task will rest on the new Executive Committee and Dr.
Moshe, who will take over as Secretary-General, knows well
that he can count on me for full cooperation.
Since our initial Chapter convention in Madrid in 2002,
we have had very fruitful meetings with a majority of chapters
at the International Epilepsy Congress in Lisbon and at the
Regional Congress which took place in Austria, Mexico and
Thailand. All the delegates of the chapters participating
were again very active and I am glad to say that the ideas
brought there are clearly improving the relations between
the chapters and the Executive Committee.
Regarding new chapters, the General Assembly approved in
Lisbon the incorporation of Costa Rica, Cyprus, Hong Kong,
Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Nicaragua, Pakistan and South Africa
allowing ILAE to reach the number of 92 chapters. Since then,
the Executive Committee has already approved provisionally
the inclusion of United Arab Emirates and Bangladesh as new
chapters. We have also received requests of application kits
from: Libya, Uganda, Sudan, New Zealand, Luxembourg, Ethiopia,
Bahrain and Gibraltar. After the regional meeting in Thailand,
Myanmar and Cambodia were also going to apply, and in Marrakesh
an application kit was given to a person representing Palestine.
Headquarters has also already received the application of
PR China. At that time the Secretary-Generals of IBE & ILAE
wrote to the China Association Against Epilepsy a letter
welcoming their application. As you can understand, the eventual
incorporation of PR China as a Chapter of ILAE would allow
us to include the representation of the largest population
of patients with epilepsy in the world.
As Chair of the Task Force on Constitution & Bylaws,
I have been quite busy and we intend to finish our job before
the International Epilepsy Congress in Paris. I cannot give
any more details because we still are going to have an important
meeting of the Task Force a few days after I am sending this
report. We hope that the new amendments that are coming out
will be useful for ILAE.
I had ups and downs in the preparation of the Epilepsia
Digest in Spanish and the Executive Committee asked me to
contact new publishers and try to get sponsors for this project,
emphasizing the decision that Epilepsia Digest should be
available to chapters in their local language and that Spanish-speaking
countries represent a large segment of epileptologists. The
Editorial Committee will include representatives of the Spanish
Chapter and from different countries in Latin America. My
goal is to have Epilepsia en Español published and
to have it freely distributed to all the members of the Chapters
in Spain and Latin America.
In summary, ILAE is growing, is achieving its objectives,
and I hope we’ll keep doing it.
Dr. Natalio Fejerman
Secretary-General
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