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A lorry explodes on the E4 motorway, there is a fire at the Hovet arena, someone takes hostages at Tom Titts, there's an explosion at Arlanda - it all happens at the same time and the medical services in Region Stockholm have to deal with a large number of injured patients at once. Fortunately, it was all just an exercise. The exercise, which is part of the TKS course, now aims to be developed into a national course concept.

On Thursday, 28 March, the Sune Bergström auditorium at Karolinska University Hospital was filled with Ukrainian paramedics, when the hospital, together with the Centre for Health Crises at Karolinska Institutet, arranged a visit dedicated to the exchange of experiences, discussions, and guided tours.

The air quality in Swedish cities has improved continuously over the last twenty years, according to a research collaboration in which the Institute for Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institutet participates. Several thousand deaths may have been prevented every year, thanks to better air quality. However, many people are still exposed to air pollution that exceeds the World Health Organization’s recommendations.

On Thursday, 14 March, the fourth policy lab was arranged since the start in October 2023. The participants were invited to follow the journey of a Swedish Government Official Report and discuss when and how researchers can provide input in the most useful way. It was an educational session where everyone had the opportunity to share experiences, ask questions and benefit from expertise in the field, from both inside and outside KI.

Zambia is currently experiencing the worst cholera outbreak in over two decades. The acute diarrhoeal disease can be deadly if not treated, however with rapid and correct help, the majority of people affected can be treated successfully. The Centre for Health Crises as seconded members of staff to cholera outbreaks before, and on the 26th of January, Caroline de Groot went to Zambia, via the Centre’s collaboration with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).

The eastern mediterranean region is currently facing a brewing health crisis, brought on not least by the war in Gaza. The danger of spread of infectious diseases means that effective epidemiological surveillance and action is key. To assist in these efforts, the Centre for Health Crises has seconded epidemiologist Moa Herrgård via our membership in WHO’s Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN).

While the most extreme heatwaves have the greatest short-term impact on mortality, it is the mildest heatwaves that kill most lives over time. This is because mild heatwaves are more common. This is according to a new study published in Environment International that has mapped the health risks of heat waves in India.

On 6 December, the European Commission published the names of the experts appointed to its newly established working groups on science diplomacy. Maja Fjaestad, expert coordinator at the Centre for Health Crises and affiliated to research at the Department of Learning, Informatics, Management and Ethics (LIME), is one of two Swedish university researchers who will be part of the working groups. The working groups will develop a potential future European framework for science diplomacy.

What were the successes and challenges of clinical trials of COVID-19 treatment during the pandemic in Sweden? What have we learnt, in order to be better prepared for future health crisis? Those were questions asked at a symposium and roundtable discussion organised by the Centre for Health Crises at KI on December 14.

A group with broad expertise in the field of health crises, consisting of people from fifteen Swedish universities, gathered at Karolinska Institutet on Tuesday 5 December, when the Centre for Health Crises hosted a meeting about how universities can contribute before, during and after health crises. During the meeting, experiences were shared and the foundation was laid for a health crises network.

The venue in Biomedicum was quickly filled with interested KI employees when the Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Health and the Centre for Health Crises welcomed them to the first policy lab on 26 October. The aim was to discuss and learn more together about how research can influence politics and society. The focus this time was on how the national Swedish political system is structured when it comes to health care issues and what ways there are to reach in with input from universities.

It began with a text message in the early hours of the morning. A few hours later he was on a plane to Morocco, reading the first reports and trying to start a secondary data analysis of the situation. Within the 48 hours after the earthquake, he was in the most affected region. He had barely gotten back from that mission, when he was asked to go to Libya and to do the same thing all over again, this time in a heavily flooded town.

The Centre for Health Crises has received funding from the Swedish government to increase and support collaboration across the country’s universities on the topic of health crises. Initially, the Centre completed an online mapping of ongoing activities and existing health crises competences at a majority of the universities. We have also recruited Caroline de Groot, who is coordinating the work and is in the process of reaching out to key groups and individuals to learn more.

Lisa Strömmer is the new expert coordinator, in emergency surgery, at the Centre for Health Crises. She looks forward to, among other things, develop existing courses and work to make sure that emergency surgery as a competence is maintained in crisis preparedness, health crises and as a part of the total defense (Totalförsvaret).

The COVID-19 preparedness and resource groups that KI set up during the pandemic are to be wound up. Their work will be picked up and developed by the Centre for Health Crises, which was established in July 2021.

The Centre for Health Crises is currently supporting the WHO’s EMT (Emergency Medical Teams) initiative, through mentorship to the Ministries of Health in Georgia and Armenia in their development of EMTs. The director of the Centre, Professor Johan von Schreeb, has just returned from spending ten days in the two countries, working with the Ministries and other partners.

Lifestyles, the pandemic and dental care were some of the topics under discussion when Minister for Social Affairs and Public Health Jakob Forssmed visited Karolinska Institutet on 28 August, the same day as the autumn term kicked off.

When the Minister for Minister for Social Affairs and Public Health Jakob Forssmed visited KI on Monday 28 August, he met, among others, the director of the Centre for Health Crises, Johan von Schreeb. During the meeting the Centre highlighted the need for national collaboration on the role of universities in crises, as well as a national ability (surge capacity), focused on people trained in handling health crises, to be ready when the crisis hit.

The podcast Riskzonen, featuring well-known KI staff members Mattis Öberg and Emma Frans, is back with a new season! The four episodes were released in May and June, and after a brief break over summer, more episodes will now be released each Monday, starting on 28 August. Each episode features the topic health crisis, in one way or another, ranging from relief efforts in war to antibiotic resistance. The new season is made in collaboration with the Centre for Health Crises.

The summer heat is here and with it questions about how we should handle high temperatures and what we should do to feel well in the heat. Cardiologist Petter Ljungman, associate professor at the Institute for Environmental Medicine and expert coordinator at the Centre for Health Crises, answers questions about health and heat.

Students from the study programmes in nursing, radiography, medicine and psychology attended the new elective course in Sustainable Health and Development, 7.5 credits, which is offered for the first time in the spring term of 2023. The course is developed by the Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Health, which is a cooperation between KI and Makerere University.

The third installment in the seminar series KI Contributes explored the health crises created by war and armed conflict, through the medium of visual art. An Armenian artist and a Swedish surgeon shared their experiences of war and how humans live through it and try to make sense of their difficult experiences.

Are international field hospitals always needed? And do we always need to send medicines to disaster-stricken areas? These were two myths that Johan von Schreeb discussed in his keynote when EU’s health ministers gathered in Stockholm.

The group of expert coordinators at the Centre for Health Crises keeps growing. The expert coordinators manage the work that is done within their field of expertise. The latest area of expertise to be added to the Centre is laboratory and diagnostic preparedness, with Jessica Alm as expert coordinator.

Her involvement in health crises work at KI goes back to her role in one of the expert groups that were formed at KI during the COVID-19 pandemic, which proceeded what became the Centre for Health Crises. Now she is the latest in the group of expert coordinators at the Centre. Hedvig Glans wants to use her clinical and academic experience to improve the Centre’s competence in outbreak preparedness and response to infectious diseases.

Helena Hervius Askling is new in the growing group of expert coordinators at the Centre for Health Crises. Her extensive experience in the field of infectious diseases and the topic of vaccine, as a medical doctor in infectious diseases, county medical officer and associate professor, will strengthen the centre’s competence in the field.

Maja Fjaestad is the latest in a line of expert coordinators that have been recruited to the Centre for Health Crises at KI. The LIME-researcher and former under-secretary of state will work in the expert field of policy and preparedness. She looks forward to contributing with a holistic outlook when it comes to health threats.

The Centre for Health Crises at KI is expanding its group of expert coordinators. This time it is the area of expertise is health systems resilience, and it comes in the form of Helena Nordenstedt, associate professor and medical doctor, with an extensive experience. Her research interests span the area of global health and resilience to crises on a systems level.

Following a request from KI's President, the Centre for Health Crises has produced the report Improved preparedness for the next health crises – lessons learned at KI during the COVID-19 pandemic. The report outlines the changes that were made and the lessons learned from the work KI did during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is now available to read online in its entirety.

The Centre for Health Crises at KI has published its first annual report, covering activities at the Centre during 2022. Since it is the centre's first year in operation, the report also outline the background to the establishing of the centre, the centre's organisational structure and introduces the staff.

Minister for Education Mats Persson met researchers and students when he visited Karolinska Institutet on 1 February. Topics of discussion with the students included the conditions relating to clinical placements, student funding rules and the situation for overseas students and doctoral students. The researchers, for their part, talked about the progress being made in areas such as precision medicine and about KI’s preparedness for new health crises.

On January 26th, the Centre for Health Crises welcomed a distinguished panel of both national and international researchers and civil servants to the second KI Contributes seminar. The seminar featured short presentations and discussions around the complex issue of extreme heat, with a focus on how to shape and evaluate heat adaptation plans.

Representatives from centres within Stockholm trio met at KI for a breakfast meeting and a chance to engage in conversations about activities and collaborations within the topic of climate and health. The collaboration group on climate and health creates spaces and opportunities for interdisciplinary cooperation in this wide and complex field.

On the 1st of September Mattias Öberg began working 20% at the Centre for Health Crises. His role is to develop the centre’s work with chemical and toxicological health crises. This will be done through, among other things, monitoring, establishing networks, identifying educational and research gaps, as well as identifying how the centre best contributes to the field.

Märit Halmin starts her new role as expert coordinator in the field of ’critical care with limited resources’ at the Centre for Health Crises on the 7th of November. Her role will be to coordinate and develop the centre’s operations within the field.

Petter Ljungman, cardiologist, and Associate Professor at the Institute of Environmental Medicine is the new expert coordinator at the Centre for Health Crises in the field of extreme weather, climate, and health effects. Thereby the centre continues to expand its expertise in various health crises subject areas.

During a visit to Sweden this week, WHO Europe’s director Dr Hans Kluge had time for a brief, but cordial, visit to KI. Dr Kluge met with Vice President Anders Gustafsson and the director of the Centre for Health Crises, Professor Johan von Schreeb, along with the centre’s strategic process leader Dr Anna Zorzet. The quartet talked about matters of common interest and about initiatives related to health crises in particular.

We recognise the images of health care and medical staff in PPE. Maybe we have even experienced an outbreak of the disease where we have lived. But what is it actually like to work in an ongoing Ebola outbreak? Anneli Eriksson, specialist nurse and research specialist at KI, answers three questions about working in the ongoing outbreak in Uganda.

Anneli Eriksson, research specialist at the Centre for Research on Health Care in Disasters and a specialised nurse with extensive field experience, was on her way to Spain when she turned on her heel and instead headed straight to Uganda, to work in a coordinator role for Médecins sans frontières (MSF) Sweden in their efforts to assist in the current and ongoing Ebola outbreak in the country.

On September 23, the Centre for Health Crises kicked off our seminar series KI Contributes, aiming at addressing contemporary health crises, with an interactive panel discussion on the health consequences of extreme heat. The focus was addressing a multi-layered health crisis with effects on both individual and public health.

Hearing the word ‘war injury’, one might think of bullet wounds, torn off limbs or burns from explosions. And whilst injuries such as these certainly feature in the palette of suffering that war brings, the reality is more complex, and to some extent perhaps also less cinematic.

Anna-Mia Ekström has been involved with the Centre for Health Crises since the very beginning and is now a part of its first steering group. Before the Centre was formed, she was a member of KI’s interdisciplinary resource team post COVID-19 (KIRP), and the task force that helped shape the centre. Just like with her many other engagements her aim is to make a difference, especially for the most vulnerable.

The majority of cold wave related deaths occurred in middle-income countries followed by high-income countries, deaths were likely to occur during heat waves than cold waves or severe winter weather, in particularly in high-income countries and increased CO2 emissions can result in an increased number of deaths during severe weather events. That is the conclusion of a recently published study that looked at extreme weather events and deaths in the years 1999 to 2018.

The Centre for Research on Health Care in Disasters has had three articles published so far during the month of May. One covers the development of quality assurance tools for ICUs in Lebanon, whilst the other looks at the experiences of moral challenges among disaster health care responders, and the consequences thereof. The third reviews autotransfusion in low income areas.

When others run away from bad things, Johan von Schreeb can be found dashing towards them. He has a wealth of experience in bringing order to chaotic situations – but as an administrator, he’s a complete disaster. Meet the professor who wants to control the health crises of the future.

Six people, members of staff or affiliated, from KI went to Moldova on short notice to support the healthcare system there by conducting mass casualty exercises and training in triage and treatment of war wounds. The work was done through KI’s Centre for Health Crises, on a request from the WHO.

The Centre for Health Crises at Karolinska Institutet is now a member of the WHO’s network GOARN – Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network. Via the network, the Centre for Health Crises can contribute with staff and resources to health emergencies and crises around the world.

On March 16 the Minister for International Development Cooperation visited Karolinska Institutet to discuss current research about vaccination and development cooperation for health. The visit was made in conjunction with National Vaccination Week, which has the aim of achieving more people being vaccinated against Covid 19.

Karolinska Institutet’s Centre for Health Crises is to receive SEK 15 million grant from Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation. The money will be used to build up the centre and develop its activities over the coming two years.

Several researchers at KI have offered to host Ukrainian colleagues. Initiatives have been launched through, among others, the organisation EMBO, which supports research and researchers in the field of life science.