ECCVID Abstract Submission Opening Soon!

Don’t miss the opportunity to submit your abstract for the ESCMID Conference on Coronavirus Disease, taking place online from 23 – 25 September 2020.

The call will open on the 20^th July 2020 and run for 2 weeks, closing on 3 August 2020.

See the ESCMID Website for the abstract submission guidelines and template.

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Call for ESCMID Ethics Advisory Committee members

Via WHO: Addressing the crisis in antibiotic development

WHO has announced the launch of the AMR Action Fund, that will invest in developing innovative antibacterial treatments. The Fund aims to bring 2-4 new treatments to patients by 2030.

“AMR is a slow tsunami that threatens to undo a century of medical progress” highlighted Dr Tedros, Director General of the WHO, at the launch event in Berlin. “I very much welcome this new engagement of the private sector in the development of urgently-needed antibacterial treatments.”

Find out more on the WHO website.

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Article highlight: ‘Suppression of a SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in the Italian municipality of Vo’

Lavezzo et. Al have released a pre-publication article in Nature detailing data from a point-prevalence survey performed at the beginning and end of lockdown in the Italian Municipality of Vo’, a small town near Padua.

85.9% and 71.5% of the population of Vo’ were included in the survey at the two respective timepoints, with 2.6% and 1.2%  prevalences of infection. Notably, 42.5% of the confirmed SARS-CoV-2 Infections detected across the two surveys were asymptomatic

This study sheds new light on the frequency of asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection, their infectivity (as measured by the viral load) and provides new insights into its transmission dynamics and the efficacy of the implemented control measures.

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Public consultation phase open for two new guidance documents

There is time until 26th July 2020 to participate to the Public Consultation Phase on the following guidelines:

1) Global guideline for the diagnosis and management of rare mold infections: An initiative of the ECMM in cooperation with ISHAM and TBD (deadline 26th July 2020)

2) Global guideline for the diagnosis and management of the Endemic Mycoses: An initiative of the ECMM in cooperation with ISHAM and TBD (deadline 26th July 2020)

ESCMID members wishing to comment on either of the three manuscripts should write to guidancedocuments[at]escmid.org indicating their ESCMID membership number in order to receive the confidential draft of the manuscript, along with the comments form for listing feedback.

For more information, please visit the ESCMID website.

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WEBINAR: Living Evidence & Guidance for COVID-19; opportunities & challenges for developers, publishers & end-users

Registration is now open for this webinar organized by the Guidelines-International-Network.

DATE:  21 July 2020
TIME:  12:00 – 13:30 BST/London time

This event will be hosted by Christine Laine, Julian Elliot and Britta Tendal and co-chaired by Pablo Alonso Coello. More information can be found here: g-i-n.net/covid-19/covid19-webinars-folder/living-evidence-webinar. To register please follow the link below.

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CMI highlight: Viral shedding dynamics in asymptomatic and mildly symptomatic patients infected with SARS-CoV-2

Asymptomatic patients, together with those with mild symptoms of COVID-19, may play an important role in SARS-CoV-2 transmission. However, the dynamics of viral shedding during the various phases of the clinical course of COVID-19 remains unclear at this stage.

In the present study, 18 asymptomatic and mildly symptomatic patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection were assessed during the clinically apparent and convalescent phases of COVID-19 in Chongqing, China, in order to characterize virus shedding dynamics and serologic responses in this population.

It was observed by the authors that long-term intermittent virus shedding was occurred in the respiratory tract of some patients with mild symptoms and asymptomatic cases. During the convalescent phase, detectable antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 and RNA were simultaneously observed in five patients, which suggests that the production of specific antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 may not guarantee viral clearance after discharge.

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