ULB, UCLouvain, Université de Montréal
" OBJ: 1) Observe interprofessional and interorganisational collaboration "in the making" in crisis situation: how professional groups organize and collaborate (within and between professional groups) in different organizational contexts (liberal practice, primary care delivery services, hospitals, nursing homes, etc.) especially for vulnerable groups. 2) Analyse the role of regulatory bodies governmental agencies, professional associations) in managing healthcare professions and interprofessional collaboration in crisis situations 3)Improving future care and the resilience of health systems METH: Collection and analysis of documents (instructions, tools, etc.), qualitative interviews, in situ observations. Developing Grounded theory "
Funding: Research team is part of BeHive - Interdisciplinary primary care Chair, funded by the King Baudouin Foundation (Fund Dr. Daniel De Coninck)
Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

ULB

Sphère publique, sphère privée : Impact du port du masque sur la reconnaissance des personnes et de l'expression émotionnelle de leur visage. " Le déconfinement approche. Bientôt la population belge sillonnera à nouveau les rues, les transports et l'ensemble de l'espace public mais munie de masques. Quels retentissements sur la capacité des personnes à en reconnaître d'autres sur base de leur visage et à en extraire l'expression émotionnelle ? Sera-t-on toujours capable de juger, de manière efficace, de l'intention d'autrui à notre égard même si cette dernière porte un masque ? A tous les âges ? Ou, au contraire, a-t-on raison d'avoir la suspicion que le port du masque pourrait nous empêcher de reconnaître quelqu'un sur base de son visage et d'en lire les émotions de manière efficace ? "
Publication References: de Heering, A., & Rossion, B. (2008). Prolonged Visual Experience in Adulthood Modulates Holistic Face Perception. PlosOne, 3(5): e2317. de Heering, A., &amp...

Read more: Adélaïde de Heering, Post-doctoral Fellow

ULiège
" Study of the legal consequences of Covid 19 on the execution of construction contracts in Belgium "
Publication References: B. KOHL, "L'épidémie de Covid-19 et l'exécution des marchés de construction", Journal des Tribunaux, Brussels, Larcier, 2020, pp. 361-371
Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

ULB
"Our objectives are: • To study maternal and neonate COVID-19 information in the Belgian-Obstetric Surveillance System database: clinical presentation and natural history of disease, pregnancy-related basic information, pregnancy outcomes, birth characteristics, infant morbidity and mortality. • To study the core socio-demographic information to potentially identify groups at higher risk of complications • Build a more informative dataset thanks to data mining of public databases This study will enable us to understand the impact of COVID-19 on pregnant women and their offspring in Belgium, and in the world via the contribution to the INOSS multicenter study. It might allow us to define an at-risk population among pregnant women and their offspring, and tailor epidemiologic and clinical interventions for these more vulnerable individuals."
Funding: Pending (FNRS)
Publication References: "1. The International Network of Obstetric Survey Systems study of uterine rupture: a...

Read more: Caroline Daelemans, Professor

ULB
" COVerT Our aim is to delineate more accurately the prevalence of the infection in the pregnant population and study vertical transmission in the cord blood of babies born to mothers with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection. Determination of prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in mothers by combined universal screening: presence of antibodies (IgG and IgM or IgA) in their blood and/or a positive RT-PCR in the nasopharyngeal swab. We intend to detect evidence of vertical transmission by the identification of SARS-CoV-2 specific IgM or IgA in cord blood samples. If there is evidence of vertical transmission, the analysis of the consequences depending on infection timing during pregnancy will enable us to guide management more precisely. "
Funding: pending FNRS
Publication References: "1. Delforge ML, Costa E, Brancart F, Goldman D, Montesinos I, Zaytouni S, Marchant A, Donner C Presence of cytomegalovirus in urine and blood of pregnant women with primary infection might be associated...

Read more: Caroline Daelemans, Professor

ULB
" Lockdowns around the world have resulted in factories shutting, less commercial activity and fewer cars on the road and planes in the sky - reducing emissions to unprecedented low levels. Satellite data for monitoring atmospheric changes can track the drop in pollutants and make a first guess on that of climate gases. It is the largest ever 'global air pollution experiment'. "
Funding: ERC-advanced IASI-FT project
Publication References: https://iasi-ft.eu/covid-19/ https://erc.europa.eu/news-events/magazine/erc-researchers-explore-lockdown-life
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GIGA - ULiège - FNRS
" Covid-19 is associated with a high risk of thrombotic disease, both in the venous and arterial circulations. As President of the Belgian Society on Thrombosis and Hemostasis (BSTH), I am coordinating the creation of national algorithms for thromboprophylaxis and anticoagulation of Covid-19 patients by a group of experts. These algorithms will be included in the Sciensano Covid-19 guidelines. "
Publication References: In preparation
Contact: Cécile Oury, PhD President of the Belgian Society on Thrombosis and Haemostasis Research Director F.R.S.-FNRS Head of the Laboratory of Cardiology GIGA-Cardiovascular Sciences University of Liège (B34) 1 Avenue de l'Hôpital 4000 Liège (Sart-Tilman) Belgium Tel: +32 (0)4 366 24 87 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Institut Jules Bordet, ULB - FNRS
" Cancer patients under active treatment are thought to be highly vulnerable with regards to the current pandemic of COVID-19 disease. Their management has drastically changed over the past weeks, as clinics have been forced to adapt their care strategies according to national guidelines, postponing all non-essential consultations and having patients avoid the clinic altogether as much as possible. However, it is currently unclear if cancer patients are indeed at a higher risk of developing COVID-19 disease, and if systemic oncological treatment contributes to more severe disease because of suppression of the immune system, or rather protects against fatal cytokine release storms and acute respiratory distress syndromes. This information is absolutely crucial for the safety assessment of using cancer treatments during the COVID-19 pandemic, and for the monitoring of cancer patients during this period. Therefore, this project is a non-interventional...

Read more: Christos Sotiriou, FNRS Research Director

CReSPo & IEE - USL-B
" The pandemic is questioning the evolution of multilateralism with an a priori return of States as first line manager. However, paradoxically the need for a coordinated approach both at the global (UN) and European levels appears crucial. We monitor multilateral regulations in border management and control of mobility during and after the pandemic. "
Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

ULB
" I wrote two pieces, one on the difficulty inherent to the evaluation of effects of Covid-19 counter-measures, and one which argues that the crisis calls for a paradigm shift in global health policies towards systemic, preventive, and holitistic health policies "
Publication References: Paul E, Brown GW, Ridde V. COVID-19: time for paradigm shift in the nexus between local, national and global health. BMJ Global Health 2020;5:e002622. Paul E, Ridde V. Évaluer les effets des différentes mesures de lutte contre le Covid-19, mission impossible ? The Conversation, 5 avril 2020 (https://theconversation.com/evaluer-les-effets-des-differentes-mesures-de-lutte-contre-le-covid-19-mission-impossible-135060)
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ULiège
"DECONTAMINATION AND REUSE OF SURGICAL MASKS AND FILTERING FACEPIECE RESPIRATORS The global test protocol, presented in this project, aims to assess: a) the effectiveness of several decontamination methods with regard to integrity (""barrier"" function) and the quality of surgical masks and filtering facepiece respirators FFP2/N95; b) the efficacy of these decontamination methods on the inactivation of a coronavirus, similar to the SARS-CoV-2 virus present on surgical masks and filtering facepiece respirators FFP2/N95. Moreover, the present project aims to set up a consortium of companies and laboratories to meet the diverse and varied requests for ""reuse"" of various medical protective equipment (masks, filters, clothing, etc.) linked with the environmental approach."
Funding: Walloon Government
Contact: https://www.news.uliege.be/cms/c_11717821/fr/l-uliege-coordonne-le-projet-wallon-de-decontamination-des-masques-chirurgicaux-et-de-protection-respiratoire-ffp2...

Read more: Eric Haubruge, Professeur ordinaire - Etienne Thiry, Professeur ordinaire - Georges Daube,...

ULB - FNRS
" Inactivation of viruses on surfaces, textiles, surgical Tools, or any 2D or 3D object cannot always be performed using chemicals. This project aims at inactivating viruses using various atmospheric plasma sources, and study these mechanisms of inactivation. "
Funding: ULB Walloon Region (requested)
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UCLouvain/IREC/MBLG
" The objective of this project is to perform SARS CoV-2 infection of cells from Vero E6 line. With a view to -Study the information of the infection on the immune activation pathways and the metabolic pathways within the cells - Perform virus viability assays in different environments and analyze the effectiveness of the hygiene measures taken to prevent transmission of the virus into the environment. - Study the neutralization and the cytopathogenic effect by antibodies from clinical samples "
Funding: own funding
Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Professor UCLouvain/Cliniques universitaires St-Luc This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., PhD UCLouvain

ULB
" Learning from the curve is a voluntary and open source research project on COVID-19 and economics. It is a joint initiative of researchers in economics at ECARES, Solvay, ULB. Our mission is to provide detailed and real-time information and visualizations on COVID-19 and economics for the general public and the press, to serve as a platform for research collaboration on these topics, to understand the impact of COVID-19 on the economic tissue of countries and regions, to provide policy recommendations based on scientific arguments supported by data analytics. Learning from the curve started as a voluntary effort of faculty and students in empirical economics at ECARES. We are also very grateful for funding from the Special COVID-19 ULB grant. None of this would be possible without either. We call data from various sources, which are referenced in the respective dashboards and articles. We provide data sources and code on our Github organization. All publicly available data, code...

Read more: Glenn Magerman, Professor - Mathias Dewatripont, Professor - Bram De Rock, Professor

UCLouvain
" This research project aims at studying the conditions under which the modern welfare state could build a kind of epidemics insurance, while paying a particular attention to the issue of fairness. The global objective of saving lives may be associated to policies that have undesirable distributive effects, against ideals of social justice. The project aims at finding ways to make mass prevention and equity compatible. "
Funding: This project will be part of my research load at UCLouvain, within the Hoover Chair in Economic ans Social Ethics.
Publication References: Fleurbaey, M., Ponthiere, G. (2013). Prevention against Equality ? Journal of Public Economics. Fleurbaey, M., Leroux, ML, Ponthiere, G. (2014). Compensating the dead. Journal of Mathematical Economics. Fleurbaey, M., Leroux, ML., Pestieau, P., Ponthiere G. (2016). Fair retirement under risk lifetime. International Economic Review. Leroux, ML., Ponthiere, G. (2018). Working time regulations, unequal lifetime and...

Read more: Gregory Ponthiere, Professor