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- Barbaud, Annick, et al.
(författare)
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Allergies and COVID-19 vaccines : An ENDA/EAACI Position paper
- 2022
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Ingår i: Allergy. European Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 0105-4538 .- 1398-9995. ; 77:8, s. 2292-2312
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background Anaphylaxis, which is rare, has been reported after COVID-19 vaccination, but its management is not standardized.Method Members of the European Network for Drug Allergy and the European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology interested in drug allergy participated in an online questionnaire on pre-vaccination screening and management of allergic reactions to COVID-19 vaccines, and literature was analysed.Results No death due to anaphylaxis to COVID-19 vaccines has been confirmed in scientific literature. Potential allergens, polyethylene glycol (PEG), polysorbate and tromethamine are excipients. The authors propose allergy evaluation of persons with the following histories: 1-anaphylaxis to injectable drug or vaccine containing PEG or derivatives; 2-anaphylaxis to oral/topical PEG containing products; 3-recurrent anaphylaxis of unknown cause; 4-suspected or confirmed allergy to any mRNA vaccine; and 5-confirmed allergy to PEG or derivatives. We recommend a prick-to-prick skin test with the left-over solution in the suspected vaccine vial to avoid waste. Prick test panel should include PEG 4000 or 3500, PEG 2000 and polysorbate 80. The value of in vitro test is arguable.Conclusions These recommendations will lead to a better knowledge of the management and mechanisms involved in anaphylaxis to COVID-19 vaccines and enable more people with history of allergy to be vaccinated.
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| 2. |
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| 3. |
- Buhr, Katarina, et al.
(författare)
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End users’ challenges, needs and requirements for assessing resilience
- 2018
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This report summarizes the results from the work in Task 1.3 of the SmartResilience project. Within the Work Package “Establishing the project baseline and the common framework”, Task 1.3 contributes to a better understanding of the indicators for resilience assessment by examining the actual needs from the ones responsible for such an assessment.This deliverable establishes, at an early stage in the project, a baseline for understanding end users’ current and projected challenges, needs and requirements for assessing resilience of critical infrastructures and using resilience indicators (RIs) for doing so. This is a necessary step to ensure that the resilience assessment methodology and smart RIs will be designed in ways that are useful and therefore adopted, thus delivering increased resilience for critical infrastructures, beyond the project.The identification of end users’ challenges, needs and requirements in assessing resilience within Task 1.3 has been guided by an actor analysis approach and is predominantly based on qualitative methods, consisting of semi-structured individual or group interviews with key end users connected to critical infrastructures, desktop studies and literature reviews. The task has covered eight critical infrastructures in the SmartResilience case studies (ALPHA-HOTEL) as well as an additional case study covering interconnected critical infrastructures (DSB). Furthermore, in order to take into account end users beyond these nine case studies, a literature review has been carried out as well as a survey among the Members of the Community of Users of Safe, Secure and Resilient Societies (CoU).The key findings from Task 1.3 are summarized below:Designing useful indicators requires extensive end user involvement in order to be able to integrate the indicators into existing organizational processes. There is a need to define the “work” that the indicators are supposed to do and make sure they meet the challenges of interconnected infrastructures.End users in the case studies confirmed and provided further insight into the following key challenges, which are illustrated by examples: the concept of resilience; external threats (climate change, cyber-attacks, terrorist attacks, flooding); the complexity of critical infrastructures; and data management.End users in the case studies expressed specific needs and requirements, which has been analyzed in terms of five dimensions of resilience and illustrated by examples: system/physical; information/data; organizational/business: societal/political and cognitive/decision-making.The survey to the CoU indicated that some actors do not see a need to develop RIs because they think current practices are sufficient. Although the low response rate calls for caution in interpreting the results, the responses suggests a number of challenges for the SmartResilience project. First, the need for the project to create assessments and RIs that are clearly regarded as providing added value in relation to end users’ current and projected needs. Second, the challenge to design assessments and RIs that can be widely disseminated, while at the same time taking different contexts into account.Three implications for indicator development are suggested. Firstly, indicators should be developed with an appropriate end user in mind. This means posing questions such as: What organization, and what function or user group, will use it? What is their interest in using indicators? What is their legitimacy to spread the indicator in the critical infrastructure? Secondly, indicators should be developed in dialogue with end users, in order to increase the likelihood that they cover areas that are relevant and currently not sufficiently covered; are relevant, understandable and legitimate; and are designed according to end users’ own motives for assessing resilience and perceptions of usefulness. Thirdly, indicators should be developed in alignment with end users’ organizational processes. This suggests that the project should develop indicators which are easy to understand in order to decrease the dependency of individual expertise and misunderstandings across different organizations; meet the level of capacity of resources that the organization(s) are willing to spend on assessments of resilience; and allow end users to collect, process and share (big) data, taking data security into account.
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| 4. |
- Iftekhar, Emil Nafis, et al.
(författare)
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A look into the future of the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe : an expert consultation
- 2021
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Ingår i: The Lancet Regional Health. - : Elsevier. - 2666-7762. ; 8
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- How will the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic develop in the coming months and years? Based on an expert survey, we examine key aspects that are likely to influence the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe. The challenges and developments will strongly depend on the progress of national and global vaccination programs, the emergence and spread of variants of concern (VOCs), and public responses to non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs). In the short term, many people remain unvaccinated, VOCs continue to emerge and spread, and mobility and population mixing are expected to increase. Therefore, lifting restrictions too much and too early risk another damaging wave. This challenge remains despite the reduced opportunities for transmission given vaccination progress and reduced indoor mixing in summer 2021. In autumn 2021, increased indoor activity might accelerate the spread again, whilst a necessary reintroduction of NPIs might be too slow. The incidence may strongly rise again, possibly filling intensive care units, if vaccination levels are not high enough. A moderate, adaptive level of NPIs will thus remain necessary. These epidemiological aspects combined with economic, social, and health-related consequences provide a more holistic perspective on the future of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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| 5. |
- Riggioni, Carmen, et al.
(författare)
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A compendium answering 150 questions on COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2
- 2020
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Ingår i: Allergy: European Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. - : Wiley. - 0105-4538. ; 75:10, s. 2503-2541
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- In December 2019, China reported the first cases of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). This disease, caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome–related coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has developed into a pandemic. To date, it has resulted in ~9 million confirmed cases and caused almost 500 000 related deaths worldwide. Unequivocally, the COVID-19 pandemic is the gravest health and socioeconomic crisis of our time. In this context, numerous questions have emerged in demand of basic scientific information and evidence-based medical advice on SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19. Although the majority of the patients show a very mild, self-limiting viral respiratory disease, many clinical manifestations in severe patients are unique to COVID-19, such as severe lymphopenia and eosinopenia, extensive pneumonia, a “cytokine storm” leading to acute respiratory distress syndrome, endothelitis, thromboembolic complications, and multiorgan failure. The epidemiologic features of COVID-19 are distinctive and have changed throughout the pandemic. Vaccine and drug development studies and clinical trials are rapidly growing at an unprecedented speed. However, basic and clinical research on COVID-19–related topics should be based on more coordinated high-quality studies. This paper answers pressing questions, formulated by young clinicians and scientists, on SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19, and allergy, focusing on the following topics: virology, immunology, diagnosis, management of patients with allergic disease and asthma, treatment, clinical trials, drug discovery, vaccine development, and epidemiology. A total of 150 questions were answered by experts in the field providing a comprehensive and practical overview of COVID-19 and allergic disease.
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| 6. |
- Sutcliffe, Laura M. E., et al.
(författare)
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Harnessing the biodiversity value of Central and Eastern European farmland
- 2015
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Ingår i: Diversity & distributions. - : Wiley. - 1366-9516 .- 1472-4642. ; 21:6, s. 722-730
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A large proportion of European biodiversity today depends on habitat provided by low-intensity farming practices, yet this resource is declining as European agriculture intensifies. Within the European Union, particularly the central and eastern new member states have retained relatively large areas of species-rich farmland, but despite increased investment in nature conservation here in recent years, farmland biodiversity trends appear to be worsening. Although the high biodiversity value of Central and Eastern European farmland has long been reported, the amount of research in the international literature focused on farmland biodiversity in this region remains comparatively tiny, and measures within the EU Common Agricultural Policy are relatively poorly adapted to support it. In this opinion study, we argue that, 10years after the accession of the first eastern EU new member states, the continued under-representation of the low-intensity farmland in Central and Eastern Europe in the international literature and EU policy is impeding the development of sound, evidence-based conservation interventions. The biodiversity benefits for Europe of existing low-intensity farmland, particularly in the central and eastern states, should be harnessed before they are lost. Instead of waiting for species-rich farmland to further decline, targeted research and monitoring to create locally appropriate conservation strategies for these habitats is needed now.
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