UNamur - FNRS
" Professors and researches from the Department of Mathematics and the naXys research institute of complex systems at UNamur gathered their skills and expertise in mathematical modeling, dynamic systems, statistics, control theory and numerical optimization to develop prediction and unlockdown monitoring models of the Covid-19 epidemic. They set up a consortium in mathematical modeling of the Covid-19 epidemic bringing together all the universities of the Wallonia Brussels Federation, in synergy with its equivalent in Flanders. "
Contact: Annick Sartenaer (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) Alexandre Mauroy (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) Nicolas Franco (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) Sébastien Clesse (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) Morgane Dumont (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

ULiège
" "La situation de confinement que nous traversons en raison de la crise sanitaire actuelle est une situation inédite, pouvant avoir un impact sur la charge mentale, la fatigue ressentie au quotidien ainsi que la qualité de notre sommeil. Le confinement modifie aussi plusieures dimensions susceptibles d'impacter la qualité des souvenirs autobiographiques. Le nombre et la variété des loisirs diminuent, le contexte des journées change peu et nous avons moins de contacts avec des personnes variées. Par ailleurs, la menace du virus peut modifier notre vision de l'avenir, avec l'impression qu'on pourrait avoir moins de temps à vivre qu'on le pensait (Cartensen, 2006). Nos souvenirs autobiographiques de la période avant le confinement et d'événements vécus pendant le confinement pourraient être modifiés en termes de degré d'épisodicité et de valence émotionnelle. Le projet est réalisé sous forme d'un questionnaire en ligne et vise généralement à explorer une association entre la...

Read more: Christina Schmidt, Chercheuse qualifiée FNRS - Christine Bastin, Chercheuse qualifiée FNRS -...

UCLouvain - FNRS
" Our interdisciplinary project (communication science, psychology, medical science) aims at measuring the evolution of the Covid-19 infodemic in Belgium through quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews. One work package of the project focus on French-speaking Belgium only (three waves survey, interviews). Another work package covers all Belgium (two waves survey) as part of an international comparison project in 8 countries. "
Funding: None at the moment.

Publication References : ORM Research report (May 2020) : Analyse de « l’infodémie » de Covid-19 en Belgique francophone URL : https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/wsuj3/
Contact : Grégoire Lits, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. https://uclouvain.be/fr/instituts-recherche/ilc/ilc-covid-19.html

ULiège, Centre for Ethnic and Migration Studies - FNRS
" Protecting the diaspora? COVID-19 and the emergency policy measures of European countries for their citizens residing abroad Abstract: In a context of increased migration and overexposure of mobile individuals to social risks, the social protection of diaspora populations has become an area of concern across Europe. However, there is still substantial variation in how EU Member States respond to the needs of their nationals residing abroad. Such variation is also observed in the emergency measures that European countries have adopted for their non-resident nationals in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. In the framework of the ERC-funded project "Migration and Transnational Social Protection in Post(Crisis) Europe" (MiTSoPro), researchers from the Centre for Ethnic and Migration Studies of the University of Liege will collect data on EU states' policy (re)actions affecting their diaspora populations, from travel restrictions...

Read more: Jean-Michel Lafleur, FNRS Research Associate - Vintila Daniela, Doctor - Konstantinidou Angeliki -...

UCLouvain - FNRS
" Through partnerships with Universities in South countries, information on available techniques and support to local trainings obtained from several national and international colleagues and platforms will be made available to health services in these institutions. "
Contact: Prof. J.-P. Coutelier de Duve Institute Universite Catholique de Louvain SSS/DDUV - ICP Av. Hippocrate 75, bte B1.74.05 1200 Woluwe-Saint-Lambert Belgique tel 32 2 764 7437 fax 32 2 764 7430 e-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Comment: Support will be provided at the request of health services from South countries and differs therefore from one country to another. Funding is provided by ARES-CCD

FNRS, UNamur, Royal Academy of Sciences, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium
" Modelling the Covid-19 with a view to showing the importance of contact habits for the choice of an appropriate lockdown exit strategy. "
Funding: Own funding
Publication References: "Because Culture Matters, There is No One-Size-Fits-All Strategy of Exit from Cov-19 Lockdown", VoxEU article, London.
Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Comment: Main paper about to be submitted.

Chemical Engineering ULiège & CRM Group - FNRS
" The Chemical Engineering Department of the Faculty of Applied Sciences of the University of Liège has been producing protective visors by 3D printing since April 4 and provides various hospital services (CHU, Citadelle, Bois de l'Abbaye), rest homes, associations and health care practices. A team of members of the Department has been set up to ensure 24-hour production, which means that up to 90 visors can now be produced per day depending on demand. As the days go by, production optimization continues to lighten components, produce faster and reduce the amount of raw material needed. The Department also receives visor supports produced by 3D printing by people from the Metallurgical Research Centre (CRM), a privileged partner of the Faculty, in order to equip them with plastic sheets to produce visors. This equipment is then distributed with the rest of the production from Chemical Engineering. The milestone of 1000 visors...

Read more: Jérôme Schruyers, Researcher - Alexandre Léonard, Research logistician - Carlos Mendoza, Postdoc -...

UCLouvain - FNRS
" We investigated the respective role of socio-demographic, cognitive, and emotional factors that can facilitate or impair three health behaviors recommended to limit the spreading of the covid19 pandemic (hand-washing, limitation of public transports' use and limitation of social contacts) "
Funding: No funding
Publication References: summary to be published in special issue of LouvainMedical Full report to be submitted in health psychology journal
Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

ULiège, CHU - Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium
" Nous faisons face à une pandémie d'infection COVID-19. Ce virus pathogène est source de complications pulmonaires aggravant fortement le pronostic de nos patients. De nos jours, tant les mécanismes physiopathologiques en cause que les marqueurs de sévérité de l'atteinte restent indéterminés. Il apparaît donc comme urgent de pouvoir identifier des marqueurs diagnostiques, pronostiques et prédictifs pour nos patients. Dans ce contexte, plusieurs voies rapidement explorables nous apparaissent comme critiques. Le but final de cette étude est de contribuer à une prise en charge plus ciblée des patients porteurs d'une infection au SRAS-Cov-2. "
Funding: Fonds Léon Frederic
Publication References: Dix publications représentatives : 1) Prevention of murine radiogenic thymic lymphomas by tumor necrosis factor or by marrow grafting. HUMBLET C, GREIMERS R, DELVENNE P, DEMAN J, BONIVER J, DEFRESNE MP. J Natl Cancer Inst 88 (1996), 824-831. IF...

Read more: Ph. DELVENNE, FNRS Research Director / Chef de service Anatomie pathologique - J. GUIOT, Chef de...

ULB, UR2NF - Neuropsychology and Functional Neuroimaging Research Unit affiliated at CRCN - Center for Research in Cognition and Neurosciences and UNI - ULB Neurosciences Institute - FNRS - Royal Academy of Sciences, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium
" The aim of the study is to examine day-to-day associations between subjective sleep quality and daytime functioning during the large-scale confinement measures taken in Belgium given the current Covid-19 pandemic in Europe. In particular, we are interested in assessing the interplay between altered patterns of sleep timing, duration and quality, and daytime behaviour, cognition, and affect for 2 weeks during the confinement period. Longitudinal data are obtained in Belgium, Hungary and Spain "
Funding: internal resources
Publication References: ongoing project
Contact: Project : This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Peter Simor: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Philippe Peigneux : This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

ULB - FNRS
" Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, an unprecedented number of genomic sequences of the causative virus (SARS-CoV-2) have been publicly released. The resulting volume of available genetic data presents a unique opportunity to gain real-time insights into the pandemic, but also a daunting computational hurdle if analysed with gold-standard phylogeographic methods. We here describe and apply an analytical pipeline that is a compromise between fast and rigorous analytical steps. As a proof of concept, we focus on Belgium, one of the countries with the highest spatial density of sequenced SARS-CoV-2 genomes. At the global scale, our analyses confirm the importance of external introduction events in establishing transmission chains in the country. At the country scale, our spatially-explicit phylogeographic analyses highlight an impact of the national lockdown of mid-March on both the long-distance dispersal events and the dispersal velocity of viral lineages. Our...

Read more: Simon Dellicour, FNRS Postdoctoral Researcher

ULB, UCLouvain, UNamur - FNRS
" Since early March, we have monitored spatial features of the epidemic, and various possible spatial determinants of its progression, including demographic, socio-economic and environmental indicators. We are also investigating the predictive and explanatory value of various indicators of mobility. Since the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic in Belgium, we observed strong spatial patterns in the disease case incidence. Before confinement measures came into effect mid-March, spatial predictors such as population density, as expected, were correlated to incidence. After the confinement came into effect, many such predictors no longer affected recorded incidence. We have assembled a rich database of demographic, socio-economic, and environmental indicators at the municipality level to identify spatial correlates of disease transmission. These are expected to differ pre- and through confinement, and to change further after confinement. We are also working...

Read more: Sophie Vanwambeke, Professor - Catherine Linard, Professor - Marius Gilbert, FNRS Senior Research...

UCLouvain - FNRS
" Background Primary care is considered to be an essential component of the health system towards the Quadruple aim (improved health outcomes for people, care processes, efficiency and provider work life). In French-speaking Belgium Primary care is poorly structured. The current Covid-19 epidemic acts as a revealer for the strenghts and weaknesses of primary care. The main research question is: what can we learn about the structuration of primary care, its strenghts and weaknesses, in the context of the current epidemic? We use a qualitative research design. The investigated population si primary care providers (GPs, nurses, dentists, pharmacists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists) who are representing their profession, while having a clinical activity. We hold weekly semi-structured interviews with 10 different profiles of providers while the crisis lasts. We use the systematic reporting of critical events, as perceived by the interviewees, as an entry point...

Read more: Thérèse Van Durme, FNRS Research Associate

ULB - FNRS
" On the relationship between isolation, re-opening and mental health, with a special focus on consumerist behaviors. "
Funding: none
Contact: Xavier Noël, Research Associate, FNRS Faculty of Medicine ULB