The 14th African Rotavirus Symposium Committee would like to announce that the 2023 conference will accommodate in-person participation, for both presenters, delegates and invited guests.

The official symposium languages will be English and French.

We welcome submission of abstracts for presentations relevant to the symposium theme and session topics.  Abstracts must be submitted electronically via the conference website by 31 August 2023.

We strongly encourage abstracts from rotavirus researchers, clinicians, public health practitioners and health officials to share ideas, expertise and learning across organisations and countries in the areas of rotavirus vaccine introduction and surveillance, vaccine impact and diarrheal disease prevention and control in Africa. Priority will be given to presentations that offer critical or reflective comment rather than purely programmatic or descriptive papers. 

The abstracts should not exceed 350 words excluding abstract title and presenter details. One delegate may present may more than one paper although limits to number of papers from the same organisation will be considered when abstract selections are made. 

Session topics:

• Burden of Rotavirus Disease
• Rotavirus and Diarrheal Disease surveillance
• Current Rotavirus Vaccines in Routine Immunization 
•  Impact of Rotavirus vaccination on other diarrheal diseases
• Rotavirus genomic diversity
• Advances in Rotavirus Immunology and Vaccination 
• Rotavirus Vaccine Economics and Financing in Africa
• Human Resource Capacitation and Retention for Vaccination in Africa
• Performance Monitoring and Programmatic Challenges for Rotavirus Vaccine Implementation in Africa
• Strengthening surveillance networks and collaboration in Africa

 

Oral Presentations
The length of your abstract must be no more than 350 words detailing your most recent research findings in one of the above topics. It must be written in English in Arial (10 font) and should include: 

An abstract title

• Authors’ first and last name with the presenting author’s name underlined
• Name of authors’ organisations (if more than one, numeric numbers should be used linking co-authors to organisations)
• A brief introduction / background to the study
• A statement of the research problem / research question / research hypothesis
• Research methodology employed in your study
• Summary of results 
• Discussion and conclusion / a summary of the results / preliminary results / anticipated results

Oral presentation 8 slides 10 minutes

Poster Presentations 
The committee has decided to introduce an electronic poster programme for this year’s symposium.  Each poster presenter will get an opportunity to display their electronic poster (2 Slides) in the venue and present a short (5 minute) summary. The poster sessions will form part of the main conference programme.

The length of your abstract must be no more than 350 words detailing your most recent research findings in one of the above topics. It must be written in English in Arial (10 font) and should include:

An abstract title

• Authors’ first and last name with the presenting author’s name underlined
• Name of authors’ organisations (if more than one, numeric numbers should be used linking co-authors to organisations)
• A brief introduction / background to the study
• A statement of the research problem / research question / research hypothesis
• Research methodology employed in your study
• Summary of results 
• Discussion and conclusion / a summary of the results / preliminary results / anticipated results

All abstracts will be reviewed and the final selection made by the symposium scientific committee.

Notification of acceptance/non-acceptance will be sent to applicants during  15-30 September 2023.

Evaluation Criteria
Criteria for evaluating the quality of abstracts include originality of ideas and methods, concise presentation of methods and results, clarity of application and implementation, quality of abstract, and relevance to conference theme and topics.