Enhancing information for action: A strategic tool for strengthening public health emergency management systems.

Background: This paper addresses the importance of timely and robust information systems that underpin emergency response decision-making, as evidenced during the COVID-19 pandemic in the WHO European Region. Recognizing the relevance of these systems, we propose the strengthening of national emergency response information management systems (ERIMS) within the broader digital health information system (HIS) framework. We aim to develop and present an innovative assessment tool designed to evaluate and assist in the strengthening of ERIMS, contributing to a more resilient and effective emergency response.

Mass gathering events and COVID-19; lessons learnt from the 2020 European football championship.

Evidence about the impact of mass gatherings during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on the number of disease cases and on the health-care systems of host countries is limited. Additionally, there have been few publications on the lessons identified from the adaptation of mass gatherings held during the pandemic, including the implementation of comprehensive public health and social measures aimed at reducing viral transmission. This article describes preparations made for the 2020 Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) European Football Championship (UEFA Euro 2020) by the World Health Organization's (WHO) Regional Office for Europe, UEFA and other stakeholders after the championship had been rescheduled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Estimated number of lives directly saved by COVID-19 vaccination programmes in the WHO European Region from December, 2020, to March, 2023: a retrospective surveillance study.

Background: By March, 2023, 54 countries, areas, and territories (hereafter CAT) in the WHO European Region had reported more than 2·2 million COVID-19-related deaths to the WHO Regional Office for Europe. Here, we estimated how many lives were directly saved by vaccinating adults in the WHO European Region from December, 2020, to March, 2023.

Methods: In this retrospective surveillance study, we estimated the number of lives directly saved by age group, vaccine dose, and circulating variant-of-concern (VOC) period, regionally and nationally, using weekly data on COVID-19 mortality and infection, COVID-19 vaccination uptake, and SARS-CoV-2 virus characterisations by lineage downloaded from The European Surveillance System on June 11, 2023, as well as vaccine effectiveness data from the literature.

Biotic countermeasures that rescue from a infection.

The natural assemblage of a symbiotic bacterial microbiome (bacteriome) with microalgae in marine ecosystems is now being investigated as a means to increase algal productivity for industry. When algae are grown in open pond settings, biological contamination causes an estimated 30% loss of the algal crop. Therefore, new crop protection strategies that do not disrupt the native algal bacteriome are needed to produce reliable, high-yield algal biomass.