By Claudio L. Bassetti – EAN Acting President
Despite some positive slowing of new cases and deaths in some countries, the COVID-19 pandemic has infected until today over 3.5 million people, leading to more than 250,000 deaths across the globe. Without a doubt, the crisis sparked by this pandemic has also wreaked havoc on healthcare systems and economies while causing massive disruption to the everyday lives of people around the world.
The European Academy of Neurology (EAN) remains committed to fighting the pandemic together with its members and the global neurology community. By working together and sharing our knowledge and experiences we can learn and adapt to fight COVID-19 and ensure that neurologists are prepared for the neurological manifestations of this disease.
With the aim of actively supporting the neurology community, EAN has launched a series of activities and created special resources, bringing together all neurologists and related specialists during this challenging time. With more than 45,000 individual members, 47 European National Neurological Societies and 11 associate National Societies from Africa and Asia, EAN has a wide network with which to communicate and distribute important information and initiatives.
As you may already be aware a multidisciplinary Task Force has been created to contribute to and coordinate the EANcore COVID-19 initiative. Several major activities have already been launched within this new EAN initiative, including recommendations for specific diagnostic and treatment from our Scientific Panels on how to deal with neurological patients according to the different subspecialties. We have also set up a platform to search and access current COVID literature.
In order to shine a light on the impact of COVID-19 in neurology, we have also distributed an onlineSurvey on the Neurological Manifestations of COVID-19 (which can be filled out in less than 3 minutes). The survey was launched on April 9 and has already had more than 5,000 responses, which demonstrates a strong willingness on the part of neurologists to share their experiences. Information on the results of the survey will be made available on the EANcore COVID-19 site in the coming weeks. In the meantime, please take a few moments to complete the survey.
On April 29 the Ean Neuro-covid ReGistrY was officially launched. The aim of this initiative is to assess systematically the characteristics and impact on outcome of neurological manifestations of the pandemic. The creation of the registry was accelerated by the excellent collaboration with the Italian (SIN), Spanish (SEN) and Portuguese neurological societies. This tool (and the necessary methodological and technical support to collect, share and analyse the data) is available to all interested members, departments and national societies. Within few days several national societies and centers from over 14 European countries have already joined this initiative. I encourage you to register via the online form to more information.
Neurologists must play their part too in this crisis, and EAN is ready to support them and direct all the resources and effort it can to help in the fight against the pandemic. We invite you all to join us.
