On September 23th 2014, the Center for the Study of Bioethics in partnership with the Serbian Unit of the UNESCO Chair in Bioethics organized a seminar ”21st Century -An Era without Rare Diseases?”. It gathered together the most famous Serbian experts in this field who have illuminated the problem of rare diseases from biomedical, ethical and legal perspectives. The seminar was opened by Professor Vojin Rakic. A special guest was Jelena Milosevic, President of the International Association for the F.O.P. and former President of the National Organization for Rare Diseases of Serbia – NORBS. Five experts, Professor Amira Fazlagic, dr Sonja Pavlovic, Dr Hajrija Mujovic-Zornic, Dr Dusanka Krajnovic and Dr Nikola Vojvodic delivered their presentations. The seminar was moderated by Olivera Z. Mijuskovic, PhM.
In Serbia, there are more than 600,000 people suffering from rare diseases. Individually, each disease is rare, but when taken all together, the number of patients constitutes a serious problem. Similar statistics exist for other countries. A number of these diseases are inherited. With the advent of advanced biotechnology in the field of genetics, modern medicine is able to deal with them successfully. The question is whether these diseases could be completely eradicated in the future. Participants in the seminar tried to provide some answers to this question.
