Salutations to all readers. Please allow me to introduce to you to the new Silk Road Supplement of the Journal of Wound Care (JWC). This new supplement covers Asia, Middle East and Australasia, connecting the various clinicians, researchers and academicians in the field of wound management. This is a new initiative to reach out to the largest area and continent in the world, with more than two thirds of the world's population.
Wounds are a huge burden in this region and a lot of work has to be done to improve wound management and standard of care in the various countries. The Silk Road supplement serves as a new platform to enable wound clinicians to undertake more research, write up their cases for publication and connect to the rest of the world. The sharing of knowledge and expertise is an important aspect among the various stakeholders from the different disciplines in medicine. The role of a multidisciplinary team (MDT) in managing various wounds such as diabetic foot ulcers (DFU) has been highlighted time and time again in numerous publications and guidelines as well as consensus documents.
This issue of the Silk Road supplement has papers looking at changes of tissue images using ultrasonography, the use of various modalities such as autologous platelet-rich fibrin-based bioactive membrane, and acellular human dermis and skin grafts, as well as other contributions from the region. This is the first edition of the Silk Road supplement and the editorial board welcomes more participation from all of you around the region who have been championing wound management with such passion.
We started the year with the 10th Abu Dhabi Wound Conference, which was held at the Jumeira at Etihad Towers, where meetings were also held with the World Union of Wound Healing Societies (WUWHS) on the ongoing preparations for the 6th WUWHS conference. This will be held at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre (ADNEC) 8–12 March 2020. Following the meeting, Ms. Gulnaz Tariq will become WUWHS President for a period of four years. Incidentally, the JWC is the official journal of the WUWHS.
Many preparations are being made to make WUWHS 2020 a memorable and momentous event, including preparations for the JWC-WUWHS awards which will be held on the evening of the 10 March. These prestigious awards aim to recognise the work done since the 2016 Florence meeting, the wound care Olympics if you like, where gold, silver and bronze medals will be handed out.
Thank you. Keep up the great work. Take care and God bless.