Monthly Archives: May 2020

Dr. Thomas is helping lead the HCV Elimination Program in Florida.

The FL HCV elimination group convened national and local experts in August 2019 in Orlando, FL for its inaugural meeting to address screening, treatment-level barriers and liver cancer prevention. The meeting goal was to support a statewide HCV elimination program and it was attended by stakeholders including representatives from the FL DOH, patients, medical and social service providers, researchers, policymakers and others from private organizations. This followed an earlier HCV elimination meeting in February 2019, held in Miami, FL by the major liver disease societies (AASLD/EASL). Planned activities will strengthen and be synergistic with the current efforts from the FL DOH viral hepatitis program and include involvement of four major academic centers in FL. Stakeholders will continue to meet in 2020 with the goal of producing a guidance document with support from both the American Liver Foundation and ASTHO by participating in monthly peer-to-peer learning opportunities for hepatitis elimination.

Click here for more information about the Hepatitis Elimination Project

To participate in the State of Florida, please contact:

Thomas Bendle email: Thomas.Bendle@flhealth.gov
Emmanuel Thomas email: ethomas1@med.miami.edu

Dr. Thomas presented in the Antibody Testing and Treatment Recommendations webinar as part of the AASLD’s ongoing series.

Dr. Thomas presented in the Antibody Testing and Treatment Recommendations webinar hosted by the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases. The webinar took place on April 30th, 2020 as part of the COVID-19 and the Liver series by the AASLD COVID-19 Working Group. The COVID-19 and the Liver series is dedicated to presenting discoveries and discussions about COVID-19 and how it impacts the care of liver patients.

The Antibody Testing and Treatment Recommendations webinar is the fourth in the series. This session was designed to:

  • Describe updates to the COVID-19 pandemic’s effect on the liver and its impact on hepatology and liver transplant providers.
  • Help attendees to understand and review management strategies in patients with COVID-19 and chronic liver disease.
  • Provide information regarding diagnostic antibody tests for SARS-CoV-2 exposure and review data on the possibility of subsequent immune protection from COVID-19.

Dr. Thomas’s presentation emphasized the current state of serological testing for SARS-CoV-2 and ongoing developments in this area. Antibody response in infected patients remains largely unknown and clinical values of antibody testing have not been fully demonstrated. Seroprevalence data will be important in understanding the scale of the pandemic & future vaccine immunity. False positive and false negative serology testing results are driving the development of optimized neutralization assays from established companies.

Additional presenters for the Antibody Testing and Treatment Recommendations webinar included Dr. Kimberley A. Brown, Chief of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, MI as well as Dr. Laura M. Kulik, Professor of Medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology of the Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, IL. The webinar was moderated by Dr. Brendan M. McGuire, Professor of Medicine and Medical Director of the Liver Transplant Program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and the Children’s of Alabama.