The first meeting of the Asset High Level Policy Forum was held in Bruxelles on March 12. The Forum was intended to bring together selected European policy-makers at regional, national and EU levels, key decision makers in health agencies, the pharmaceutical industry, and civil society organisations, in a unique and interactive dialogue to promote on-going reflection on EU strategic priorities about pandemics.
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) has decided to hold a two-days conference in Riga (Latvia) with ministers and high level representatives from the Ministries of Health, Social Affairs and Finance of the European Union, European Economic Area and Eastern Partnership Countries as well as high representatives of the European Commission, members of the European Parliament, representatives of international institu
World TB Day, on March 24th each year, is aimed at building public awareness about tuberculosis, a disease still causing nearly one-and-a-half million deaths each year, mostly in developing countries.
The debate over measles vaccine is underway in many countries and, in some cases, the discussion came to court. It happened, for instance, in Italy in 2012, when a judge recognized the right to compensation (required by Italian law) for the family of a child vaccinated in 2002 with the trivalent vaccine MPR (measles-mumps-rubella) who were later diagnosed with autism. During the debate, the consultant of the family presented the research of the English physician Andrew Wakefield.
Recognize and respect fear. This is one of the main lessons Ron Klain claims to have learned by his efforts against Ebola. Klain has recently served as the first White House Ebola Response Coordinator, also known as the Ebola Czar. From such a high position, he got a close and deep insight into the dramatic threat to global health represented by the West Africa outbreak.
The recent cases of measles outbreaks in US and Europe reignited the debate on vaccines, the science behind them and the conflict between the right to individual freedom and the state intervention. Amongst the several factors that contribute to the decrease of vaccination coverage – especially in some groups – vaccine hesitancy is one of particular interest, which should require much greater attention from public health and epidemiology, medical sociology, anthropology, and the behavioural, economic and political sciences.
One of the ASSET’s purposes is to develop its approach on different levels, from the global to the local one. This will include both the analysis of specific experiences and the production of new initiatives. According to this aim, the Bulgarian National Center of Infectious and Parasitic Diseases (NCIPD) has just released the Local Communication Plan for Bulgaria, which is a complement of the Communication Strategy of the ASSET project.
The ASSET Communication Strategy consists of a general strategy, drafted for the whole Consortium, and Local Communication Plans for different countries. The Local Communication Plan, prepared for Bulgaria, aims to provide a general strategic framework, which can facilitate the further planning of actions, aimed at fulfilling the objectives, set out in the general communication strategy within the specific national context.
From May 18 to 22, 2015, Florence will host the 24th International World Wide Web Conference (WWW 2015), the premier international forum to present and discuss progress in research, development, standards, and applications of the topics related to the Web. WWW 2015 will offer high quality technical activities, including research sessions, poster sessions, workshops, tutorials, demonstrations, an industry track, a developers track, panels, and a Ph.D. symposium.
According to the last news from FluNews Europe, the current wave of influenza is causing a higher level of mortality among elderly people compared to the four previous seasons. In fact, an excess of all-cause mortality among the elderly (aged ≥65 years), concomitant with increased influenza activity and the predominance of A(H3N2) viruses, has been observed in recent weeks in Belgium, France, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom (England, Scotland and Wales).