Major project with involvement of IGHE members

Cognitive consequences of sport-related traumatic brain injuries in adolescents in the Slovak Republic TBICE

Traumatic brain injuries are among the most important causes of death and disability in young people, and this makes them a significant health and societal problem. Most of the injuries are mild, but even these can have significant and long-lasting consequences-both physical and cognitive. One of the most important causes is sports - contact injuries caused during play. The aim of this project is to use the existing cohort of young hockey players to evaluate the cognitive consequences of brain injuries occurring during the game in the acute (hours to days post injury) and chronic phase (weeks to months post injury). Such an approach will allow, beside the cognitive assessment itself, to evaluate the dynamics and course of the consequences. Besides cognitive assessments, blood samples will be obtained from the injured players which will be analysed for presence of biomarkers indicating damage to the brain structures. By doing so, biological evidence of the presence of brain injuries and their extent will be provided at each point of assessment, which will increase the validity of cognitive assessment itself. In addition, using cognitive and biological assessment at the same time will allow for analyses of their correlation – this will be a unique opportunity which will bring important insights into the scientific debate on the transmission patterns because the denominator can be well defined. This will facilitate timely estimates of transmissibility of COVID-19 infection for informing public health responses and policy decisions. Values of important epidemic transmission parameters, unique for Slovak population, will be assessed, such as the secondary attack rate (secondary infection rate) in Slovak households and closed-setting outbreak sites, symptomatic proportion of cases, serial interval, clinical symptoms presentation, serologic response to infection, risk and protective factors of infection. The study results will inform public health decision makers on designing effective measures for control and containment of COVID-19.

Evaluating the dynamics of Covid-19 transmission in the Slovak Republic using key epidemiologic measures to inform decision makers about the effective disease control and containment strategy

We will conduct a retrospective case-ascertained transmission study of household contacts of laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases and main outbreak sites in two regions of Slovakia (Bratislava and Trnava administrative regions) for the period of the „first wave“ of the pandemic in the country. SARS-CoV-2 infection in contacts of PCR confirmed cases will be assessed by testing the antibody status in electro-chemiluminiscence immunoassay. Our research methods will be guided by the World Health Organization’s Household Transmission Investigation Protocol for 2019-novel coronavirus (COVID-19) infection. By using a standardized protocol, epidemiological exposure data and biological samples will be systematically collected and analyzed. Our research of closed settings, such as households and closed-setting outbreak sites with defined population that may not mix readily with the larger surrounding community provides a strategic way to characterize virus

Collaborative European NeuroTrauma Effectiveness Research in TBI (CENTER-TBI)

CENTER-TBI is a large European project that aims to improve the care for patients with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).

It forms part of the larger global initiative InTBIR: International Initiative for Traumatic Brain Injury Research with projects currently ongoing in Europe, the US and Canada.

CENTER-TBI brings the newest technologies and many of the world's leading TBI experts together in a much needed effort to tackle the silent epidemic of TBI. International and multidisciplinary collaboration are key elements to the project in which past dogmas will be left behind and innovative approaches undertaken. As Coordinators of CENTER-TBI we are proud to lead this generationally unique project.

We anticipate that CENTER-TBI will revolutionize our view of leading TBI to more effective and efficient therapy, improved health care at both individual and population based levels, and better outcomes at lower costs.

We are grateful to our patients for allowing us the opportunity to advance the care for future patients, and wish all Participants and Investigators success in their efforts.

Scaling-up NCD Interventions in South-East Asia (SUNI-SEA) 

Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are major cause of deaths globally and the burden of NCDs is rising disproportionately among lower income countries and populations. Three quarters of all NCDs deaths are in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC).

The increasing concerns on NCDs and their burden has led to a research project entitled “Scaling-Up NCD Interventions in South-East Asia (SUNI-SEA)” which is being delivered through a collaboration of nine consortium members from Europe and South-East Asia. This 4-year research project started in 2019 and is taking place in Indonesia, Myanmar and Vietnam.

The overall aim of the SUNI-SEA project is to evaluate and validate effective and cost-effective scaling-up strategies of evidence-based diabetes and hypertension prevention and management programmes, and apply results to enhance sustainable action for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), based on experiences in South-East Asia.