With the escalation of the hostilities and the destruction of most of the infrastructure in the Eastern and Southern regions of Ukraine, millions of civilians are bracing ahead of the cold months to come.
Orphans Feeding Foundation, partner of Active Citizenship Network, has now launched "Winter is Coming" campaign, which aims to provide the necessary support to millions of civilians in the coming cold months to come. Click here to learn more and help people in need in the liberated areas in Ukraine. Recently, The Ukrainian parliament has awarded Mariam Lambert, the co-founder of Orphans Feeding Foundation, a medal of merit for services to Ukraine.
In coherence with its multi annual commitment on the topic of sustainable mobility and as associated partner, for the 2022 European Mobility Week Cittadinanzattiva launched in Italy an online guide and a telephone number available to citizens and appealed to institutions and companies to promote a new urban mobility culture. The guide includes information on how the public transport service is provided, practical information on the various benefits of the so-called shared mobility, what the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP) provides, and advice for ecological driving. For citizens wishing to report disservices regarding public transport, Cittadinanzattiva provided a national telephone desk active on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. To know more & download the guide, click here (IT).
EENA, Cittadinanzattiva's partner on the European project ENGAGE, analyses what else can be done to involve children more actively in public safety and, in doing so, cites Cittadinanzattiva's initiative for the "19th National Day of Safety in Schools" that sheds light on how the pandemic changed schools. On this occasion, Cittadinanzattiva created a safety smartbox (IT) with valuable materials to promote resilience in the face of disasters in schools. To download the EENA report, click here, to know more about Cittadinanzattiva's contribution, click here.
Cittadinanzattiva's project, “Health for the Youngs”, came to its second edition and aimed to involve high school students in an educational path dedicated to prevention, antimicrobial resistance and vaccines. It provides students with the tools and necessary information to adopt correct hygiene and prevention behaviours to limit the spread of infectious diseases. “Health for the Youngs” transfers power on a fundamental issue such as health and well-being and awareness to younger generations. And it did so within the Italian public school system that has shown to be one of the privileged places in which propose and develop new approaches capable of impacting health education for young people, making them protagonists. To learn more about the project, click here (IT).
All potential eligible patients have the right to access Advanced Therapies Medical Products (ATMPs) and national health budget constraints cannot be a barrier to this. Read ACN Director’s article published on Active Citizenship Network’s media partner Health Europa on the occasion of the event “Securing Equitable Patient Access to Advanced Therapies across Europe”, realized Monday 24 of October 2022 by Active Citizenship Network at the EU Parliament.
The demand for influenza vaccines has been increasing, therefore, anticipating better the need for future seasonal influenza vaccines and taking appropriate measures to prepare for pandemic influenza vaccine’s industrial and delivery capabilities is crucial to secure adequate doses for European citizens and protect them against influenza and serious complications. In this context, an EU Virtual Roundtable Day on Influenza Vaccination was hosted by Members of the European Parliament, Dolors Montserrat (EPP, ES), on 21 September 2021 and ACN was an active participant in the roundtable and gave, its endorsement of the originated recommendations, i.e. the outcomes of experts’ discussions how to improve influenza vaccines supply, forecasting and demand predictability.
Data on vaccination coverage in adults and at-risk groups are not systematically collected, unlike what happens for vaccinations in childhood and adolescence and flu shots. In this context, the offer of pneumococcal vaccination in Italy, as recommended and free, has considerable regional differences in its organization and delivery, with important repercussions on the right to fair and equal access for all citizens. Cittadinanzattiva’s survey on pneumococcal vaccination has involved citizens aged from 18 to 70 years old and general practitioners, and it analyzes how the 2021-2022 flu vaccinations may have favoured the good practice of performing pneumococcal vaccine co-administration in adults at the GP’s office, also investigating citizens’ knowledge and confidence in this vaccine. The report moreover focuses on pneumococcal vaccination for healthy adults aged 65 to adults suffering from chronic diseases or who have predisposing conditions regardless of their age and aims to contribute and present civic proposals for a more effective vaccination strategy on the national territory.
The Adult Vaccination Advocacy Toolkit (AVAT), responding to an urgent call from stakeholders and advocacy groups, has come to life also thanks to ACN’s contribution. The toolkit is designed to help build the capacity and capability to influence and shape adult vaccination policy at local, national, and global levels through an evidence-to-action model of engagement across sectors and disciplines.
The positive impacts of vaccination and vaccination policies in combating the global health threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) were discussed in the framework of the training seminar dedicated to antimicrobial resistance entitled “Resistenza antimicrobica: una minaccia globale. Cosa sapere per meglio affrontarla a livello locale” and realized by Active Citizenship Network on 4 July 2022.
Last 22 April 2022, Active Citizenship Network has published an article entitled “Addressing the Challenges of COVID-19 Pandemic on the Routine Vaccinations across Europe: Focus on Flu Vaccination” on the International Journal of Virology & Infectious Diseases, an international, peer reviewed, open access, scholarly journal that brings about latest research in all related aspects of virology and infectious diseases. The published manuscript discusses about the challenges of dealing with the concomitant deployment of COVID-19 and influenza vaccination, exploring the results emerged from the II EU online survey, realized in October-November 2021 by Active Citizenship Network in the framework of its #VaccinAction2021 EU project entitled “Protecting the value of vaccination during - and after - the COVID-19 pandemic across Europe: impact, experiences and perspectives from citizens’ and patients’ advocacy groups & relevant stakeholders”.