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The large hall at Münchenbryggeriet in Stockholm was buzzing with life on Friday morning 12 April when general physicians from all over Sweden practiced mass casualty management and triage, using the simulation exercise AnTriEx, which is developed and instructed by the research group Global Disaster Medicine - Health Needs and Responses at 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).

Beyond surviving after an injury comes living. To what extent a person is able to return to the life and independence previously enjoyed is an important aspect of recovery and rehabilitation is often a crucial factor in that. Nonetheless, it is a factor often overlooked in humanitarian settings and it is an area where more research is needed. Bérangère Gohy’s PhD thesis looks beyond survival, to how recovery is measured and what the patients’ road to regained independence looks like.

Minister for Health Care Acko Ankarberg Johansson had a busy schedule when she visited Karolinska Institutet, where she spent an afternoon discussing research conditions and how to create sustainable infrastructures that can increase the interaction between education, research, development and healthcare today and tomorrow.

Due to organisational adjustments at the department, Global Disaster Medicine – Health Needs and Response becomes a research group of its own from the 1st of October. However, they have already existed for more than twenty years, but in the form of a team called Centre for Research on Health Care in Disaster. In connection to becoming a research team, the name has also slightly changed, to present the group’s focus clearer.

KI’s only Erasmus Mundus Master programme, the Master programme Public Health in Disasters, will continue, following a renewed agreement between the three collaborating partners; KI, Universidad de Oviedo and the University of Nicosia. Course leaders look forward to continuing to provide students with the latest tools to work with public health in disasters and advance research in the field. And the new format of the programme allows for all students to come to KI.

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.

Global Disaster Medicine - Health Needs and Responses is part of a consortium led by the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency, called IPA Care, that aims to address the needs of countries on Western Balkan, along with Turkey, to strengthen their ability to prevent risks related to earthquakes and other health emergencies.

Global Disaster Medicine - Health Needs and Response at KI was represented in several ways at this year’s WADEM (the World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine) congress, including with presentations and posters displaying new research conducted by the group.

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.

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.

The autumn semester of 2022 saw a new cohort of students arriving at KI to study the part of the Erasmus Mundus Master’s programme Public Health in Disasters, which is conducted by the Centre for Research on Health Care in Disasters. One of the students who came to Stockholm is Bahaa, who is really enjoying his time at KI and in Stockholm.

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.

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.

Christine Fransman was looking for something new in her career and wanted to learn more about health care in disasters when she found the course Public Health Response in Disasters at Karolinska Institutet. She has a background in health science and works as a research manager in a hospital in her native Netherlands.

Johan von Schreeb, professor of global disaster medicine and director of the Centre for Research on Health Care in Disasters at Karolinska Institutet, has been named director of KI’s newly established Centre for Health Crises. The aim is to create a center based on KI’s knowledge and capability, that finds connections between groups and people, with the aim of increasing preparedness for a new pandemic or health crisis.

Over the course of two half-days students, researchers, & implementers from a range of disciplines gathered online to examine matters of inequity and vulnerability in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic in the Nordic countries. The event was hosted by the Nordic Pandemic Network, an interdisciplinary collaboration on COVID-19 & its impact in the Nordic region, which KI is a part of along with The University of Copenhagen, Roskilde University, University of Stavanger & Hanken School of Economics.

The students in the 2021/2022 year of the Erasmus Mundus Master programme Public Health in Disasters are about to complete their time in Sweden and move on. We spoke to Rickkye Gan and Collins Santhanasamy about what made them interested in the programme, what they have learnt and what they will take with them from their time in Sweden.

Poverty and violence were already endemic even before an earthquake hit Haiti in mid-August. Thousands of people now live in informal camp sites in the capital Port-au-Prince. KI doctoral student and nurse Martina Gustavsson went there to work with Doctors Without Borders’ emergency response team.