News

The Scientific Symposium ‘Building Trans-atlanting Bridges in Pediatric Hematology-Oncology’, jointly organised by the ‘Aghia Sophia’ Children’s Hospital / “ELPIDA” Association of Friends of Children with Cancer, Greece and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, USA, was held at the NJV Athens Plaza Hotel on April 21st-22nd , 2017.
During this symposium, the main aspects of Pediatric Oncology were covered, combining both the time-validated approaches and knowledge, along with all the new developments, like the CAR-Tcells technology.

Distinguished scientists in the field have been invited in the faculty, ensuring a high quality programme and a stimulating scientific dialogue. Among the guests were Prof. Theoklis Zaoutis, CLEO’s Scientific Director and Chief of the Infectious Diseases Division of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), Prof. Susan Coffin, CLEO’s Associate Scientific Director and Associate Chief of the Infectious Diseases Division of the CHOP, and Cand. PhD John Kopsidas, CLEO’s Infection Preventionist.

Hand hygiene is at the core of effective IPC (Infection Prevention Control) to combat antibiotic resistance, and campaigning each year on around 5 May is one important part of improving behavior towards IPC best practices.

WHO’s 5 May 2017 campaign slogan, “Fight antibiotic resistance – it’s in your hands” demonstrates the unity between AMR (Antimicrobial Resistance) and infection efforts.
Read more here.

CLEO which represents the view that the simplest and most effective way of preventing hospital infections is the implementation of good hand hygiene practice provided support to public hospitals and participated in this day’s events.

The CLEO team headed by Prof. Theoklis Zaoutis, participated in the 35th Annual Meeting of the European Society for Paediatric Infectious Diseases, ESPID 2017, that took place in Madrid, Spain, from 23-27 May, 2017. This conference was attended by paediatricians, infectious practitioners, microbiologists and researchers involved in the pathogenesis, diagnosis and treatment of infections in children, from all over the world. During the conference, research studies about infections and vaccines against infections were presented. 

In addition, distinguished scientists presented the latest developments in the aforementioned fields of research through a series of lectures or training seminars. Several research papers related to infants and children also came from Greece, while CLEO participated with the following abstracts:

Increasing Healthcare Workers'(HCW) Uptake of Seasonal Influenza Vaccination (SIV) in a Tertiary Pediatric Hospital in Greece

Key Determinants for the Development of Recurrent Invasive Infections in Neonates: Data from the Neonin Network on Behalf of the Neonatal Infection Surveillance Network (NEONIN)

Healthcare Worker Perceptions of the Barriers to Preventing Hospital-Acquired Infections in Greek Neonatal Intensive Care Units

Healthcare-Associated Factors Correlated with Neonatal Coagulase-Negative Staphylococcus spp. Infection

Healthcare-Associated Factors Correlated with Nosocomial Neonatal Enterococcal Infection

Epidemiology of Enterococcus spp. Infections from the Neonin Infection Surveillance Network

The CLEO team also participated in the 9TH ESPID RESEARCH MASTERCLASS (ERMC), a closed, seminar type of forum for active paediatric infectious diseases (PID) research groups in Europe. The primary aim of ERMC is to provide better opportunities for young researchers to present their studies and discuss their research with other junior colleagues as well as with European research group leaders. During the Masterclass, the junior researchers will be trained how to present their data, ask questions or chair a session. The second aim of the seminar is to provide the researchers a better view of recent PID research in Europe and also to stimulate discussions of new research collaborations among ESPID members.​

The European Commission called upon international, European, national and regional NGOs active in the field of vaccination to present details of their initiatives to the EU Health Award 2017. The call for applications targeted initiatives that help achieving higher level of public health for Europeans through vaccination.

There were 27 candidate NGOs which were considered for the prize, with applications coming from 16 different countries. CLEO's initiative was among the shortlisted ones. The winners of the EU Health Award for NGOs 2017 were announced on 27 November 2017 at the Award Ceremony hosted during the EU Health Policy Platform annual meeting, in presence of EU Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, Vytenis Andriukaitis.

Read here more