[Practice of international collaborations in Southeast Asia].

Leprosy Research Center is engaged in the international collaborative research project since 1989. The project was consists of two parts. One part is the JICA training course which has been practiced since 1989. Another part is the international collaborative research which was started in Indonesia in the year 1991. Author has participated in this project since 1998. Then, we started collaboration with various organizations including Pakistan, Vietnam, and Myanmar. The contents of the collaborative research were mainly technical assistances for leprosy diagnosis and we have trained young doctors, staff to conduct serological diagnosis and molecular biological diagnosis of leprosy. The projects between the countries were succesful. Throughout the collaboration with foreign countries, author felt strongly that one of most important things in such collaboration was better communication and relation between people having different cultural background.