News from the world

After seven years of activity, the EpiSouth Network presented the results it gathered in a final conference, organized by the Italian Istituto Superiore di Sanità (ISS), that will start today in Rome. Several topics will be discussed during the conference: the project impact, its added value at a national and regional level, its sustainability and its possible future developments. The full programme of the conference may be found here.

The EpiSouth Network is an EU-funded project that – by building a network that includes the countries of South-East Europe, North Africa and Middle-East – is

Scientists interviewed by the media are not necessarily independent. During 2009 swine flu pandemic, the responsibility for publicly inflating the risk fell less on authorities than on experts whose link with pharmaceutical industry were often undisclosed; it is thus necessary for all academics to declare any potential conflict of interests and for journalists to explore further and report such cases, since undisclosed conflict of interests degrades public confidence in medical research, to the detriment of the whole scientific community.

These are the striking conclusions of a group of

Another step towards a better European coordination against health crises: the Decision on Serious Cross-border Threats to Health, approved in July by the European Parliament, has finally entered into force on November 6^th. Driven by the motto “Hope for the best, and be prepared for the worst”, the Decision recognizes the need for a common approach on preparedness planning together with risk and crisis response, and will enforce coordination between all Member States.

Aim of the Decision is to cover all the aspects involved – namely: preparedness planning, risk assessment, risk management and

India is facing an aggressive outbreak of dengue fever – probably the worst in the last ten years – and risk communication from authorities proved to be very ineffective: the lack of proper strategies for both prevention and reaction to dengue outbreaks resulted in low levels of public awareness and poor coordination between different institutions. A series of mistakes for which India is now paying the price: so far, more than 38,000 cases have been reported by the Indian Ministry of Health across the country since January, with 109 deaths. Huge numbers, if compared with the over 50,000 of the