Projects
HELICON - Unravelling the long-term and indirect health impact of the COVID-19 crisis in Belgium Ghent University
The spread of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and the resulting outbreak of the disease COVID-19 has faced Belgium and most other countries worldwide with unprecedented challenges. During the crisis, active surveillance systems have been put in place to monitor in real-time the number of cases, hospitalizations and deaths. These data provide valuable insights in the direct health impact of COVID-19 in Belgium ...
Development of a new point-of-care COVID-19 screening using exhaled-breath volatilome analysis. KU Leuven
BACKGROUND: The inability to rapidly detect SARS-CoV-2 infection during the COVID-19 pandemic inspired strict lockdown policies, resulting in unprecedented economic adversity and clogging the health care sys-tem. As countries’ fears for second and third wave outbreaks are becoming reality, there is an urgent need for globally available, easy-to-perform, non-invasive, on-the-spot diagnostic tests to detect SARS-CoV-2 and to predict COVID-19 ...
Protective versus damaging aspects of the immune reaction in relation to clinical outcome in the Limburg COVID-19 cohort Hasselt University
Minimal Invasive Autopsy to Study Cause of Death, Contributing Conditions and Pathophysiology in Deceased COVID-19 patients; University of Antwerp
Monitoring SARS-CoV-2-specific immunity upon COVID-19 vaccination in nursing home residents and staff Ghent University
Nearly 60% of all COVID-19 deaths in Belgium so far were nursing home (NH) residents. Therefore, in January 2021, Belgium prioritised NH residents and staff for vaccination with the Pfizer-BioNTech (PB) vaccine in the COVID-19 vaccination campaign. The PB vaccine showed 95% efficacy in a phase III trial, but older people were largely underrepresented. This is worrisome, since older adults most often suffer from immunosenescence (decreased ...
Balancing socio-economic and public health impact of COVID-19 for its sustainable control and mitigation (SOPHIA) Hasselt University
Balancing socio-economic and public health impact of COVID-19 for its sustainable control and mitigation (SOPHIA) Ghent University
Given the uncertainty about the further development of the COVID-19 pandemic, decision makers urgently need to balance the immediate public health impact of the virus and the - yet uninvestigated - psychological and socio-economic impacts of the mitigation measures that were imposed to safeguard our health care system. Just as the spread of COVID-19 itself, these effects are spatially heterogeneous and scale dependent, hence the need to ...
RESTORE: REalistic forecaSTing, cOntrol and pREparedness for coming COVID-19 waves Ghent University
Over the following months Belgian society will be asked to adapt its
behavior in order to keep the COVID-19 outbreak under control and
not to jeopardise our healthcare system. This calls for an expertbased
policy that is supported by accurate medium-term model
forecasts on the further COVID-19 progression to assess the impacts
of possible control and containment measures. For that purpose, we
will start from ...
Balancing socio-economic and public health impact of COVID-19 for its sustainable control and mitigation (SOPHIA) KU Leuven
Given the uncertainty about the further development of the
COVID-19 pandemie, decision makers urgently need to balance the immediate public health impact of
the virus and the - yet uninvestigated - psychological and socio-economic impacts of the mitigation
measures that were imposed to safeguard our health care system. Just as the spread of COVID-19
itself, these effects are spatially heterogeneous and scale dependent, ...