Katy Stokes, PhD student in the ABSPIE Lab with Prof Leandro Pecchia has started working on a part-time Parliamentary Internship with the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy. Working directly with House of Lords member Baroness Natalie Bennett, Katy has supported publication of two articles exploring the interconnectedness of pandemic preparedness and antimicrobial resistance and the role of deforestation in driving antimicrobial resistance. 

The first article features research outputs from the ABSPIE Lab, in particular from a project led by Dr Davide Piaggio in collaboration with Dr Camilla Audia (Assistant Professor in Global Sustainable Development), and Prof Sharifah Sekalala and Haleema Masud (School of Law). The research: “Pandemic Management and Preparedness – Telemedicine and the Role of Innovative Technologies in Securing a Safer Future” discusses key lessons learned from the literature and 2023 European Parliament Interest Group event.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has mentioned the paper "The use of Smart Environments and Robots for Infection Prevention Control: a systematic literature review" by Piaggio et al. (2023) in its latest Global Research and Innovation for Health Emergencies report. The report, which was released on October 10, 2023, highlights the most important and promising research and innovation on infection prevention and control (IPC).

The 1st edition of the Africa Region Biomedical Engineering and Health Technology ConferenceLink opens in a new window is being held in Nairobi, Kenya, from the 6th to 8th of September of 2023. This was organised by AMEKLink opens in a new window Kenya, supported by the IFMBELink opens in a new window Africa Biomedical Engineering working group, which also has representatives at Warwick (Dr Davide Piaggio), and by the IFMBE (Prof Leandro Pecchia is Secretary General).

IFMBE award presented to the WHO's Adriana Velazquez Berumen

Since 2020, our lab has been supporting the work that the Global Community of biomedical and clinical engineers is doing with United Nations in order to face this pandemic. In the framework of his collaboration as Innovation Manager for the PPE Pillar of the WHO Blueprint and COVID-19 initiative, our lab Director, Prof Leandro Pecchia, contributed to the writing of the ‘Rethinking PPE’ report. This was a collaborative effort of over 50 individuals from different global organisations active in the health sector, including the WHO, UNICEF, The World Bank, The Global Fund, US CDC, and top universities including the MIT, Johns Hopkins, UCL, University of Colorado, University of Warwick. The effort was coordinated by McKinsey & Company .

The main conclusion of the report is that transforming the PPE ecosystem will require five coordinated shifts:

1. Catalysing PPE innovation:
2. Improving standards and quality
3. Expanding and diversifying manufacturing capacity:
4. Strengthening procurement practices;
5. Improving usage and disposal.

"Until the arrival of the pandemic, the importance of PPE seemed to be unknown to most, and above all absent from the research and innovation priorities of all the main research councils.", Prof Pecchia says. "The only ones who have stubbornly worked on PPE since the recent Ebola outbreaks have been the stubborn members of the WHO, in particular Adriana Velazquez Berumen, and the Emergency and Infection Control and Prevention Units, headed by Benedetta Allegranzi and April Baller. Perhaps it is no coincidence that this vision came from three extraordinary women".
Warwick main contribution to this report was probably in the analysis of the inadequacy of PPE regulatory frameworks in time of crisis and in resource-limited setting scenarios (Pecchia et al, 2020).

Here the report: TRANSFORMING THE MEDICAL PPE ECOSYSTEM