LATEST ESWI NEWS

VaxHunt: “The Quest to Prevent the Next Pandemic” winners!

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Congratulations to Guha, Sila, and Julia, winners of VaxHunt: The Quest to Prevent the Next Pandemic,  an online game launched by the Influenzer Initiative at #ESWI2020.

This interactive game engages players in one of science’s greatest challenges- universal vaccine protection against influenza.

If you missed your chance to play, fear not, a new in-person VaxHunt is in the works for #ESWI2021, if COVID-19 safety provisions permit. Since its debut in December, the virtual VaxHunt has also been globally launched with another round of prizes for high scorers:

1st place: $500 USD

2nd place: $250 USD

3rd place: $100 USD

The game features trivia and puzzle challenges where players explore:

  • The threat and history of influenza pandemics
  • Why we need a universal influenza vaccine (UIV)
  • The challenges of developing next-generation influenza vaccines
  • The innovative, transdisciplinary approaches that may unearth the UIV mystery and deliver on its potential

Our experience with COVID-19 has been a wake-up call to the ever-present threat an influenza pandemic poses to society. To prevent another pandemic, a universal influenza vaccine is imperative. Now is the time to fuel next-generation vaccine innovation by stimulating researchers, tech experts, thought leaders and investors to catalyze novel approaches and technologies. This challenging mission will require scientific breakthroughs, disruptive policy, and a new generation of bold flu fighters to accelerate critical vaccine research and development.

We hope you will share VaxHunt with your networks and make this important quest go viral!

*Players can also enjoy VaxHunt with the confidence that each module has been thoroughly reviewed by STEM.org Educational Research™(SER) and awarded its STEM.org Authenticated™ trustmark.

Copywrite: Sabin Vaccine Institute

World Immunization Week 2021 – Vaccines bring us closer

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World Immunisation Week – celebrated every year in the last week of April – aims to promote the use of vaccines to protect people of all ages against disease. Immunisation saves millions of lives every year and is widely recognised as one of the world’s most successful health interventions. Yet, there are still nearly 20 million children in the world today who are not getting the vaccines they need, and many miss out on vital vaccines during adolescence, adulthood and into old age.

Using the theme ‘Vaccines bring us closer’, World Immunisation Week 2021 will urge greater engagement around immunisation globally to promote the importance of vaccination in bringing people together, and improving the health and wellbeing of everyone, everywhere throughout life.

Source: World Health Organization

 

#vaccinesbringuscloser

 

Coronavirus, flu and RSV colliding in the fall: conclusions of ESWI’s webinars and recommendations

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ESWI organised four webinars in June 2020 to address these questions and discuss them amongst peers, clinicians and policymakers.

INFLUENZA AND RSV IN A COVID-19 WORLD

CLINICAL MANIFESTATIONS OF COVID-19, INFLUENZA AND RSV

INTERVENTION STRATEGIES FOR COVID-19, INFLUENZA AND RSV

CORNERSTONES OF PANDEMIC PREPAREDNESS AND URGENT ACTIONS

The following is a summary of the main conclusions and recommendations from each of the four webinars.

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ESWI Young Scientist Awards 2020

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The fifth edition of the ESWI Young Scientist Best Body Of Work award goes to Dr. Robert de Vries, Utrecht University, The Netherlands for his substantial accomplishments to date in the field of understanding influenza virus dynamics.

The first edition of the ESWI Young Scientist Innovative Award, a research grant supported by Seqirus, goes to Dr. Kirsty Short, University of Queensland, Australia, for her innovative research in vaccine development.

Both Dr. de Vries and Dr. Short will receive an invitation to give a keynote lecture during the Young Scientists Plenary session at the 7th ESWI Influenza Conference in Valencia, Spain (13-16 September).

Stimulating the careers of promising researchers being one of ESWI’s objectives, several applicants have been invited to co-chair a scientific session at the 2020 Valencia  Conference.

 

 

Influenza Preparedness Stakeholder Conference: meeting report and video summary of stakeholder debate available

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100 years ago, an influenza pandemic stunned the world, killing more than 50 million people worldwide. The world remains vulnerable to such outbreaks, and due to the fast evolution of the influenza virus, globalization and intercontinental travel, outbreaks on the scale and severity of the 1918 pandemic would have a devastating effect today. But lessons learned from the past century of research and international cooperation should help prepare the world for future pandemics.

ESWI, in partnership with the Centre on Global Health Security at Chatham House, organized the Influenza Preparedness Stakeholder Conference on the Centenary of the 1918 Pandemic to provide an opportunity to review the advances made over the past 100 years, evaluate current preparedness levels and discuss the pathways required to improve policy engagement.

The conference was held on 22 January 2019. The video-recorded lectures of the meeting are freely available on ESWI TV. Click here to watch the lectures.

The meeting report and a video summary of the stakeholder debate are now available for download.

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ESWI Summit on Influenza Vaccination Programs for Healthcare Professionals

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The question of flu vaccination for healthcare professionals is an urgent and highly relevant one. After all, the devastating impact of flu is widely recognized, and flu vaccines are estimated to prevent thousands of admissions and millions of illnesses with current usage. At risk groups are well defined. Health care professionals work with the patients at risk on a daily basis. Annual vaccination is widely recommended to reduce the risk of healthcare acquired influenza. Why then is it so difficult to achieve influenza vaccine uptake levels in healthcare workers that would reduce or eliminate the risk of transmitting the disease?

In its 2019 Science Policy Influenza Summit, ESWI will attempt to answer that question in close collaboration
with its partner organizations. Together, we aim to develop a list of actions to stimulate the implementation of vaccination policies for health care professionals.

The meeting will be held in Marseille, France, on 20 November 2019, at the occasion of the 12th European Public Health Conference. For more information, click here.

Joint ESPID/ESWI symposium at ESPID 2019 (8 May 2019)

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During the 37th annual meeting of the European Society for Paediatric Infectious Diseases (ESPID),  ESWI and ESPID will organize a joint symposium on “Influenza vaccines for children: current issues and developments”. 

Confirmed symposium speakers include:

  • Ana Mosterin (Cambridge University) on “Influenza B and the rationale for Quadrivalent vaccines”
  • Abdullah Brooks (Johns Hopkins) on “Childhood flu vaccination in underprivileged areas: challenges and solutions”
  • Ed Belongia (Marshfield Clinic Research Institute) on “Vaccine effectiveness against H3N2 influenza virus in children”.

The symposium will be held during ESPID 2019 on 8 May 2019 in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Visit the ESPID 2019 website.