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Welcome Note from the President

Dear Colleagues,

It is my honor to serve as the SLCM’s president for the year 2020/2021. I write with pleasure to welcome you to the coming year ahead. I hope to work closely with the enthusiastic group of Council members and the SLCM office staff to develop and implement activities for the benefit of our members and the country as a whole. We will reach out to you, the larger membership, to seek your support in all activities that we plan to carry out and I am confident that we can rely on your steady support that in fact will determine the level of success of our activities.

As we continue to navigate through the disruptions and challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, I’d like to take a moment to express my gratitude to the former President, her Council and also the larger membership for the enormous contribution that you continue to make to facilitate decision-making to ensure better standards in the field of microbiology, especially during critical times such as what we continue to experience since early part of this year. I hope you will feel free to reach out to me and my council with any of your thoughts about the SLCM and its future activities.

The SLCM has always served a crucial role in the field of microbiology that encompass many specialties / subspecialties with our expatriate members also playing an important role in fulfilling our obligations towards the larger membership. Our resources have no doubt proven important for scholarship and public engagement in the field. Our continuing ability to provide guidance to policy makers, ensure safety of healthcare workers and the public, defend the values of microbiology within the health sector, to engage in public issues of concern, all depend on the support we receive from you, the members.

This year the proposed theme for the annual scientific sessions is ‘‘Threat of new and re-emerging infections: role of novel tools and technologies to face challenges’. With ‘COVID-19-permitting’, we plan to organize activities around the stated theme that we hope will be of interest to you. In addition to continuing with the practice of issuing the regular newsletters, and continuous medical education programme (CME) we also plan to organize (again COVID-19–permitting!) professional development activities targeting mainly our younger members.  

The greatest strength of our College is our membership and the heights the College has reached thus far is due to the dedicated and untiring efforts of our members, both new and the old.  I invite you to participate in all SLCM activities and contribute towards the SLCM Newsletter by submitting articles of interest and latest news items, submit material for the Bulletin of the SLCM in the form of review articles, research articles, case reports and when the time comes to submit abstracts of presentations to be made at the Annual Scientific Sessions 2021, the date of which will be informed in due course.

take care and stay safe!