A year after the first meeting in Delhi, the Second FAMx Franco-Indian Forum on Public Health and Medical Innovation took place in Paris and Toulouse on 17 and 18 November 2016 between the Academy of Medicine Foundation and the AIIMS.

The AIIMS (All India Institute of Medical Sciences) is the largest Indian hospital institution and publishes 700 scientific articles annually.

During the first day of the Forum, which was held in conjunction with the French Academy of Medicine, following an inaugural conference by Professor Mahesh Misra, Director General of the AIIMS, on the management of traumatic emergencies, the discussions focused on cardiology and infectious diseases.

On the subject of cardiology, the most discussed areas were cardiology emergencies, the management of sudden cardiac death, emergency management of aortic diseases, and also advanced technologies such as the use of stem cells in heart failure or less invasive interventions (placement of prosthetic aortic valves arterially, thus avoiding the surgical opening of the thorax).

There was a focus on dengue during a session dedicated to infectious diseases. A dengue epidemic was declared in India in 2015 and has posed major public health problems there.

The day of 17 November in Paris closed with the signing of a cooperation agreement protocol on infectious diseases and cardiology with the aim of developing joint research projects and managing the treatment of patients.

The AIIMS Indian delegation was then received by the Cardiology Department of Hôpital Européen Georges Pompidou [Georges Pompidou European Hospital] in Paris to meet with professionals in the field and discuss practical projects.

The Forum continued in Toulouse on 18 November on the IUCT (Institut universitaire du cancer de Toulouse [Toulouse University Cancer Institute]) Oncopole [Oncology Unit] premises. New ways of treating cancer patients were broached. The discussions resulted in the signing of a cooperation protocol between the New Delhi National Cancer Institute under the AIIMS and the IUCT Oncopole. The signature of this protocol will encourage new cooperation to develop, integrating the latest in treatment for cancer patients and ways to ensure better treatment observation from patients and also palliative care. The Oncopole then opened its doors, demonstrating Toulouse’s most cutting-edge solutions to the problems posed by centres combining research and treatment (the Oncopole opened in 2014). The Indian experts were very interested, since the stakes are very high for AIIMS, with 250 million Euros just having been invested in the construction of a major cancer research and treatment centre due to open in 2018.

In summary, this second Forum presented the opportunity to identify specific subjects for collaboration between France and India. A joint symposium on the management of dengue, Zika and Chikungunya has now been scheduled for April 2017 in Delhi.