Consumption of Non-Prescribed Drugs in Portugal During the Pandemic in 2021.

Portugal liberalised the over-the-counter drugs market in 2005 and provides universal healthcare coverage in a mainly Beveridge-type health system. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced healthcare to change how services were delivered, especially increasing remote consultations in primary care. This analysis aims to find the drivers for taking non-prescribed drugs during the pandemic in Portugal.

A review of recent developments on drought characterization, propagation, and influential factors.

Droughts have impacted human society throughout its history. However, the occurrence of severe drought events in the last century and the concerns on the potential effects of climate change have prompted remarkable advances in drought conceptualization and modeling in recent years. This review intends to present the state-of-the-art on drought characterization and propagation, as well as providing insights on how climate dynamics and anthropogenic activities might affect this phenomenon.

Health Systems of Iran and Portugal: A Comparative Study.

A health system consists of people, institutions, and resources that provide health services to meet the health needs of the target population. Health systems in developed and developing countries have different characteristics from which some lessons can be learned. The aim of this study is to compare the two health systems of Portugal and Iran.

From Public Eugenics to Private Eugenics: What Does the Future Hold?

Traditional public eugenics, which was ordered by the State, has been replaced by a kind of private eugenics conducted by parents using reproductive techniques, genetic testing and, eventually in the future, genetic engineering. While traditional eugenics strived to improve the species, the new model aims to satisfy parents' reproductive aspirations. The association between public and private eugenics is an ongoing issue, mostly due to its relation to nazi eugenics.

The Use of Facial Recognition Technology by Law Enforcement in Europe: a Non-Orwellian Draft Proposal.

The European legal framework is not devoid of norms that are directly or indirectly applicable to facial recognition technology for identification purposes within law enforcement. However, these various norms, which have different targets and are from multiple sources, create a kind of legal patchwork that could undermine the lawful use of this technology in criminal investigations. This paper advocates the creation of a specific law on the use of facial recognition technology for identification in law enforcement, based on existing regulations, to specifically address the pressing issues arising in this domain.

Asynchronous current-induced switching of rare-earth and transition-metal sublattices in ferrimagnetic alloys.

Ferrimagnetic alloys are model systems for understanding the ultrafast magnetization switching in materials with antiferromagnetically coupled sublattices. Here we investigate the dynamics of the rare-earth and transition-metal sublattices in ferrimagnetic GdFeCo and TbCo dots excited by spin-orbit torques with combined temporal, spatial and elemental resolution. We observe distinct switching regimes in which the magnetizations of the two sublattices either remain synchronized throughout the reversal process or switch following different trajectories in time and space.

A Room with a View (and with a Gene Therapy Drug): Gene Therapy Medicinal Products and Genetic Tourism in Europe.

In contrast to the extreme caution that has been imposed on genetic medical procedures, in European law genetic drugs, or medications, have found a legal loophole that allows flexible (perhaps too flexible) access to these drugs. In Europe, Gene Therapy Medicinal Products are a form of Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products and as such submitted to the marketing authorization procedure. However, there are legal mechanisms in place - such as compassionate use, named patient use, and hospital exception - that allow for their provision to patients without proper approval.

What to Do in the Next Pandemic Outbreak: Natural Herd Immunity Versus Lockdown (Lessons Learned from COVID-19).

The purpose of this article is to analyse non-pharmaceutical approaches to control pandemics. Currently vaccines are our best hope to control the COVID-19 pandemic, but before the appearance of the first vaccines the available possibilities were much more limited. While most people worldwide were confined to their homes to slow the spread of the new coronavirus, some countries (most notably the United Kingdom) advocated infecting the majority of the community, aiming to achieve what has been called "herd immunity".

International Efforts and Next Steps to Advance COVID-19 Vaccines Research and Production in Low- and Middle-Income Countries.

Equitable and efficient distribution of COVID-19 vaccines continues to be a key issue in global health, and a targeted approach is needed to meet the World Health Organization's world vaccination targets. Although some low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are developing their own vaccines to address the distribution problem, legal and technical challenges have had a negative impact on productivity. This article explores relevant international legal instruments that can enable faster research and development of COVID-19 vaccines in LMICs, focusing on the role of biosafety standards, biological materials transfer, and key knowledge sharing.

Burnout and health status differences among primary healthcare professionals in Portugal.

Background: This paper is focused on two indicators which may be considered as proxies of individuals' well-being: self-assessed health and burnout intensity. There is little research relating these concepts with the type of the primary healthcare setting, its urbanization density and the region. The aims of this work are threefold: (i) to find determinant factors of individual health status and burnout, (ii) to find possible differences across different types of health care units, differently urbanized areas, and different administrative regions, and (iii) to verify if there are differences in between GPs and nurses.

Pigs Don't Fly and You Cannot Expect Absolutely Safe COVID-19 Vaccines (But You Should Expect a Fair Compensation).

This paper focuses on the COVID-19 vaccines authorised for use in the European Union, and explores the mechanisms in place to control vaccine safety and to compensate injured patients, mainly in the context of European law. Based on these considerations, the paper concludes that the refusal by some potential vaccinees to take the vaccine based on safety concerns is ungrounded and an indication of unrealistic expectations, but that in order to build public trust proper compensation mechanisms should be in place.

Access to Health Care by Migrants with Precarious Status During a Health Crisis: Some Insights from Portugal.

In March 2020, the Portuguese Government issued a remarkable regulation by which irregular migrants who had previously started the regularization procedure were temporarily regularized and thus allowed full access to all social benefits, including healthcare. The Portuguese constitutional and legal framework is particularly generous regarding the right to healthcare to irregular migrants. Nevertheless, until now, several practical barriers prevented full access to healthcare services provided by the national health service, even in situations in which it was legally granted.

Correction: COVID-19 Contact Tracing Apps: A Technologic Tower of Babel and the Gap for International Pandemic Control.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.2196/23194.].

COVID-19 Contact Tracing Apps: A Technologic Tower of Babel and the Gap for International Pandemic Control.

As the world struggles with the new COVID-19 pandemic, contact tracing apps of various types have been adopted in many jurisdictions for combating the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. However, even if they are successful in containing the virus within national borders, these apps are becoming ineffective as international travel is gradually resumed. The problem rests in the plurality of apps and their inability to operate in a synchronized manner, as well as the absence of an international entity with the power to coordinate and analyze the information collected by the disparate apps.

The new Japanese regulation on human/non-human chimeras: should we worry?

In March 2019 Japan modified its norms regarding research with human/non-human chimeras. The amended rules allow the creation of chimeras with human brain cells, and the subsequent transfer of the resulting creature to an uterus, where it can develop for more than 14 days, eventually until term. At this moment, the real consequences of this new regulation in actual research are still uncertain.

International Access to Public Health Data: An Important Brazilian Legal Precedent.

Accurate, up-to-date data are the bedrock of effective public health responses, including in the context of the suffering caused by COVID-19. Any action to inhibit the compilation of such data has ramifications locally, nationally and internationally, and risks impairing the global capacity to respond to the virus. This article contextualises the decision of the government of President Bolsonaro of Brazil to reduce the accessibility of contemporary data about COVID-19 infections in Brazil within his views about, and responses to, the virus.

Helical surface magnetization in nanowires: the role of chirality.

Nanomagnetism is nowadays expanding into three dimensions, triggered by the discovery of new magnetic phenomena and their potential use in applications. This shift towards 3D structures should be accompanied by strategies and methodologies to map the tridimensional spin textures associated. We present here a combination of dichroic X-ray transmission microscopy at different angles and micromagnetic simulations allowing to determine the magnetic configuration of cylindrical nanowires.

Novel interpretation of recent experiments on the dynamics of domain walls along ferrimagnetic strips.

Domain wall motion along ferrimagnets is evaluated using micromagnetic simulations and a collective-coordinates model, both considering two sublattices with independent parameters. Analytical expressions are derived for strips on top of either a heavy metal or a substrate with negligible interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction. The work focuses its findings in this latter case, with a field-driven domain wall motion depicting precessional dynamics which become rigid at the angular momentum compensation temperature, and a current-driven dynamics presenting more complex behavior, depending on the polarization factors for each sublattice.

Trap-related frequency dispersion of zero-bias microwave responsivity at low temperature in GaN-based self-switching diodes.

The zero-bias microwave detection capability of self-switching diodes (SSDs) based on AlGaN/GaN is analyzed in a wide temperature range, from 10 K to 300 K. The measured responsivity shows an anomalous enhancement at low temperature, while the detected voltage exhibits a roll-off in frequency, which can be attributed to the presence of surface and bulk traps. To gain a deep insight into this behavior, a systematic DC and AC characterization of the diodes has been carried out in the mentioned temperature range.

Drivers for emigration among healthcare professionals: Testing an analytical model in a primary healthcare setting.

This paper aims to contribute to the discussion on health workforce migration, notably by testing an analytical model of the individual drivers for a professional to decide to emigrate. A large database was obtained from all primary health care units on mainland Portugal. A professional satisfaction survey was conducted and information on social-economic, labour and job satisfaction characteristics, including burnout, was obtained.

Can China's 'standard of care' for COVID-19 be replicated in Europe?

The Director-General of the WHO has suggested that China's approach to the COVID-19 crisis could be the standard of care for global epidemics. However, as remarkable as the Chinese strategy might be, it cannot be replicated in other countries and certainly not in Europe. In Europe, there is a distribution of power between the European Union and its member states.

Supporting Innovative Person-Centred Care in Financially Constrained Environments: The WE CARE Exploratory Health Laboratory Evaluation Strategy.

The COST CARES project aims to support healthcare cost containment and improve healthcare quality across Europe by developing the research and development necessary for person-centred care (PCC) and health promotion. This paper presents an overview evaluation strategy for testing 'Exploratory Health Laboratories' to deliver these aims. Our strategy is theory driven and evidence based, and developed through a multi-disciplinary and European-wide team.

Primary health care patient satisfaction: Explanatory factors and geographic characteristics.

Objective: To determine the factors that explain the levels of patient satisfaction and the role of geographical characteristics.

Design: Questionnaires to patients of Primary Health Care (PHC) units in Portugal Mainland distributed to each unit according to their size; codes were distributed to guarantee single responses; the questionnaire was anonymous and confidential.

Setting: Primary Health Care units in Portugal Mainland.