Health

For weeks, Spain and Italy were epicentres of the COVID-19 pandemic. Their health defences had an important gap: large staffing shortages and low ratios of nurses to doctors. At the same time, nurses had higher infection rates than the general population, mainly because of the lack of personal protective equipment.

HIV has decreased more than any other cause of death in Europe, with deaths dropping by nearly a third between 2011 and 2016. However, parts of eastern Europe are in the grip of a new epidemic. In this report we look closer at HIV-related deaths across Europe region by region.

Not everyone is traveling to work these days, many are working from home. We have more time to watch things, to listen and read. Music services should be doing well out of this, but the data suggests just the opposite.      

The Coronavirus crisis is the first of its kind for the European Union. However, it is far from being the first existential crisis in the history of the Union. 

We inaugurate a new format for EDJNet's newsletter: once a month, we send out a special newsletter with a thematic focus, while the standard newsletter comes out every two weeks. Here's the March focus. 

Since the data available on the coronavirus pandemic is patchy and incomplete, it needs to be approached with caution and an awareness of what it can – and cannot – tell us about the deadly virus.

Calls have been coming from all sides for the EU to intervene in the COVID-19 crisis in the name of European solidarity. Although the Union has little room for manoeuvre in the public-health sphere, it can use the powerful lever of economic and monetary policy to counter the coming economic downturn.

Most of the drugs sold worldwide come from India and China, where production is cheapest. As a result, Europe’s supply of medicines is in the hands of a few companies. 

The COVID-19 outbreak has revived fears over acute drug shortages in Europe, sparking calls to repatriate the production of pharmaceutical ingredients from China. But rebuilding capacity would take years, if it were even possible.

How prepared are European hospitals to manage a steep increase of intensive care hospitalizations, needed in severe cases of coronavirus syndrome? We have collected some data, but the picture is far from complete.