in 1971, ala organised the viith congress of the world federation of haemophilia (wfh) in tehran, the first such meeting held outside europe or america and canada. the proceedings of the meeting, edited by f. ala and kwe denson were published by elseviers, excerpta medica (amsterdam) in 1973. soon after, the haemophilia centre at the pahlavi (now emam khomeini) hospital was designated an international haemophilia treatment centre (ihtc) by the wfh, one of only a handful of such centres at the time. he was also appointed medical secretary wfh, in 1970, as well as a member of the wfh medical and scientific advisory committee in 1978.