Health
Studying the exposome: ‘On the front line for people and the planet’
Climate and public health cannot be considered separately. The scientific community is increasingly talking about the need to study the so called exposome (the sum of all environmental factors we are exposed to) with the same level of attention with which the human genome has been studied up to now. A new European science network aims to respond to this multidisciplinary challenge.
European responses to the corona crisis
During the Coronavirus crises, the European Science-Media Hub is collecting and publishing a regular update of the most relevant releases provided by EU institutions and other European and global actors. 🆕 Last Update : 30 April 2021
How the coronavirus pandemic is changing us
These stressful and unprecedented circumstances we are living in due to the current pandemic have a deep internal effect on us, which is altering who we are as individuals, our relationships with others, and how we perceive our place in society. Even our brain's hippocampus may have shrunk — but are these changes in our brains and behaviour short-term effects or could they change us and society more profoundly?
Prof. Wayne Koff : “AI can help us design better, safer and faster vaccines”
Wayne Koff, PhD, is the founding president and Chief Executive Officer of the Human Vaccines Project. Human Vaccines Project Prior to joining the Project, from 1999 to 2016, Koff served as Chief Scientific Officer and Senior Vice President of Research and Development at the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) in New York City, leading IAVI’s ...
Professor Heidi Larson: “This is a key moment to build trust in countries and socio-economic groups with relatively low confidence in vaccines.”
For over a decade, Heidi Larson, Professor of Anthropology, Risk and Decision Science at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, has been leading global efforts to monitor public confidence in immunisation programmes. As COVID-19 vaccination programmes are rolled out across the EU, this is a key moment to build trust in countries and ...
SARS-CoV-2: the challenges of mutation and possible strategies
The efficacy of the current COVID-19 vaccines might be lower against the new variants of SARS-CoV-2. The new strain that emerged in the United Kingdom has a higher transmissibility than previous strains of the virus. We asked scientists whether the new mutations are a threat to the current public health measures and to COVID-19 vaccines.
Covid-19: different types of vaccines and how they work
A range of Covid-19 vaccines are being developed worldwide and the differences between them can be confusing. How do the new mRNA vaccines work? What about vector vaccines? We asked scientists to give us an insight into the different types of Covid-19 vaccines.
Passive immunisation for COVID-19
There is currently no specific treatment for SARS-CoV-2. However, a number of treatments have been explored in patients with life-threatening COVID-19 (such as antimalarial drugs, antivirals, immunomodulatory agents, and glucocorticoids) with varying results. Convalescent plasma collected from recovered COVID-19 patients, containing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, could potentially be an effective therapeutic tool. In addition, preclinical studies ...
Mix of COVID-19 cluster-busting with vaccine push may bring a new normal faster
Combining so-called “backward tracing” with traditional forward tracing to help identify source events of COVID-19 outbreaks has been cited as a potential way of better tracking the disease, as seen in some Asian countries. Now that vaccines are emerging on the scene, how can this concept be used for more effective cluster-busting?
Vaccination policy in times of Covid-19
As multiple COVID-19 vaccines are emerging, what can be done to tackle vaccination hesitancy and ensure rapid and equitable deployment?