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Background: Despite high contagiousness and rapid spread, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has led to heterogeneous outcomes across affected nations. Within Europe (EU), the United Kingdom (UK) is the most severely affected country, with a death toll in excess of 100,000 as of January 2021. We aimed to compare the national impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on the risk of death in UK patients with cancer versus those in continental EU., Methods: We performed a retrospective analysis of the OnCovid study database, a European registry of patients with cancer consecutively diagnosed with COVID-19 in 27 centres from 27th February to 10th September 2020. We analysed case fatality rates and risk of death at 30 days and 6 months stratified by region of origin (UK versus EU). We compared patient characteristics at baseline including oncological and COVID-19-specific therapy across UK and EU cohorts and evaluated the association of these factors with the risk of adverse outcomes in multivariable Cox regression models., Findings: Compared with EU (n = 924), UK patients (n = 468) were characterised by higher case fatality rates (40.38% versus 26.5%, p < 0.0001) and higher risk of death at 30 days (hazard ratio [HR], 1.64 [95% confidence interval {CI}, 1.36-1.99]) and 6 months after COVID-19 diagnosis (47.64% versus 33.33%; p < 0.0001; HR, 1.59 [95% CI, 1.33-1.88]). UK patients were more often men, were of older age and have more comorbidities than EU counterparts (p < 0.01). Receipt of anticancer therapy was lower in UK than in EU patients (p < 0.001). Despite equal proportions of complicated COVID-19, rates of intensive care admission and use of mechanical ventilation, UK patients with cancer were less likely to receive anti-COVID-19 therapies including corticosteroids, antivirals and interleukin-6 antagonists (p < 0.0001). Multivariable analyses adjusted for imbalanced prognostic factors confirmed the UK cohort to be characterised by worse risk of death at 30 days and 6 months, independent of the patient's age, gender, tumour stage and status; number of comorbidities; COVID-19 severity and receipt of anticancer and anti-COVID-19 therapy. Rates of permanent cessation of anticancer therapy after COVID-19 were similar in the UK and EU cohorts., Interpretation: UK patients with cancer have been more severely impacted by the unfolding of the COVID-19 pandemic despite societal risk mitigation factors and rapid deferral of anticancer therapy. The increased frailty of UK patients with cancer highlights high-risk groups that should be prioritised for anti-SARS-CoV-2 vaccination. Continued evaluation of long-term outcomes is warranted., Competing Interests: Conflict of interest statement D.J.P. received lecture fees from ViiV Healthcare and Bayer Healthcare, travel expenses from BMS and Bayer Healthcare; consulting fees for MiNA Therapeutics, EISAI, Roche and AstraZeneca and research funding (to the institution) from MSD and BMS. A.P. has declared personal honoraria from Pfizer, Roche, MSD Oncology, Eli Lilly and Daiichi Sankyo; travel, accommodations and expenses paid by Daiichi Sankyo; research funding from Roche and Novartis and a consulting/advisory role for NanoString Technologies, Amgen, Roche, Novartis, Pfizer and Bristol Myers Squibb. T.N-D. has declared a consulting/advisory role for Amgen, Bayer, AstraZeneca, BMS, Boehringer Ingelheim, Eli Lilly, MSD, Novartis, Otsuka, Pfizer, Roche and Takeda; speaker fees from AstraZeneca, MSD, Roche, Takeda and travel, accommodations and expenses paid by AstraZenca, BMS, Boehringer Ingelheim, Lilly, MSD, Otsuka, Roche and Takeda. J.B. has declared a consulting/advisory role for MSD and AstraZeneca. PPS has declared a consulting/advisory role for Sanofi and AbbVie. A.P. has declared a consulting/advisory role for Takeda and Sanofi. MP has declared a consulting/advisory role for Gilead and Bayer. A.G. has declared a consulting/advisory role for Roche, MSD, Eli Lilly, Pierre Fabre, EISAI and Daiichi Sankyo; is on the speaker's bureau for Eisai, Novartis, Eli Lilly, Roche, Teva, Gentili, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Celgene and Daiichi Sankyo and declared research funds from EISAI, Eli Lilly and Roche. C.M.-V. has received travel grants and other honoraria from BMS, MSD, Novartis and Roche. L.R. received consulting fees from Amgen, ArQule, AstraZeneca, Basilea, Bayer, BMS, Celgene, Eisai, Exelixis, Genenta, Hengrui, Incyte, Ipsen, IQVIA, Lilly, MSD, Nerviano Medical Sciences, Roche, Sanofi and Zymeworks; lecture fees from AbbVie, Amgen, Bayer, Eisai, Gilead, Incyte, Ipsen, Lilly, Merck Serono, Roche and Sanofi; travel expenses from Ipsen and institutional research funding from Agios, ARMO BioSciences, AstraZeneca, BeiGene, Eisai, Exelixis, FibroGen, Incyte, Ipsen, Lilly, MSD, Nerviano Medical Sciences, Roche and Zymeworks. J.T. reports personal financial interest in form of a scientific consultancy role for Array BioPharma, AstraZeneca, Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Chugai, Daiichi Sankyo, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., Genentech, Inc., HalioDX SAS, Ikena Oncology, IQVIA, Imedex, Lilly, Menarini, Merck Serono, Merus, MSD, Mirati, NeoPhore, Novartis, Orion Biotechnology, Peptomyc, Pfizer, Pierre Fabre, Samsung Bioepis, Sanofi, Seattle Genetics, Servier, Taiho, Tessa Therapeutics and TheraMyc. A.C. received consulting fees from MSD, BMS, AstraZeneca, Roche and speakers' fee from AstraZeneca, MSD, Novartis and Astellas. All the remaining authors have declared no conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Globally, vibrios represent an important and well-established group of bacterial foodborne pathogens. The European Commission (EC) mandated the Comite de European Normalisation (CEN) to undertake work to provide validation data for 15 methods in microbiology to support EC legislation. As part of this mandated work programme, merging of ISO/TS 21872-1:2007, which specifies a horizontal method for the detection of V. parahaemolyticus and V. cholerae, and ISO/TS 21872-2:2007, a similar horizontal method for the detection of potentially pathogenic vibrios other than V. cholerae and V. parahaemolyticus was proposed. Both parts of ISO/TS 21872 utilized classical culture-based isolation techniques coupled with biochemical confirmation steps. The work also considered simplification of the biochemical confirmation steps. In addition, because of advances in molecular based methods for identification of human pathogenic Vibrio spp. classical and real-time PCR options were also included within the scope of the validation. These considerations formed the basis of a multi-laboratory validation study with the aim of improving the precision of this ISO technical specification and providing a single ISO standard method to enable detection of these important foodborne Vibrio spp.. To achieve this aim, an international validation study involving 13 laboratories from 9 countries in Europe was conducted in 2013. The results of this validation have enabled integration of the two existing technical specifications targeting the detection of the major foodborne Vibrio spp., simplification of the suite of recommended biochemical identification tests and the introduction of molecular procedures that provide both species level identification and discrimination of putatively pathogenic strains of V. parahaemolyticus by the determination of the presence of theromostable direct and direct related haemolysins. The method performance characteristics generated in this have been included in revised international standard, ISO 21872:2017, published in July 2017., (Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

Sequencing analysis of the trh gene encoding the TDH-related haemolysin of tdh-/trh+ Vibrio parahaemolyticus isolated in Italy between 2002 and 2011 from clinical, environmental, and food samples revealed the presence of the trh2 variant in all isolates. The trh2 of the clinical isolate was 100% identical to other clinical tdh-/trh2 V. parahaemolyticus from Europe. Nucleotide and amino acid differences in the trh2 sequences of clinical isolates from Italy and other countries allowed a differentiation of the clinical strains from the majority of environmental or food strains isolated in Italy. Aspartic acid and isoleucine at positions 113 and 115, encoded by nucleotide triplets GAT and ATT at positions 337-339 and 343-345 of the complete trh gene sequence, were present in clinical strains from Europe (Italy, Norway and Germany), Asia and the United States. Only 35.5% of the tdh-/trh2 V. parahaemolyticus of environmental or food origin from Italy shared the same triplets/amino acid detected in clinical isolates, while 64.5% of isolates from the marine environment were different from those of clinical origins, demonstrating that differences occur amongst the trh2 sequences of strains from the environment and these polymorphisms may differentiate potentially pathogenic from less or non-pathogenic cultures found in the environment and seafood. In addition the distribution of T3SS2 genes was investigated in this group of tdh-/trh+ V. parahaemolyticus from different sources and in three clinical tdh+/trh- V. parahaemolyticus isolates. All tdh-/trh+ V. parahaemolyticus of environmental or food source, independent of year of isolation or geographical origin, amplified all the screened T3SS2β genes and tested negative to PCR assays for all five T3SS2α genes, as the tdh-/trh+ clinical V. parahaemolyticus isolate. The vopC genes, encoding for one of the effector proteins of T3SS2, were partially sequenced and compared to clinical tdh-/trh+ and tdh+/trh+ V. parahaemolyticus isolates from other countries. Analysis of T3SS2β vopC sequences revealed variation in tdh-/trh2 isolates from Italy, which were separated from a group of vopC sequences derived from trh2 V. parahaemolyticus from the USA., (Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

In January 2006, a major cold spell affected Europe, coinciding with an increase of H5N1 influenza virus detected in wild birds, mostly dead mute swans, starting along the River Danube and the Mediterranean coast line. Subsequently H5N1 detections in wild birds were concentrated in central and western parts of Europe, reaching a peak in mid February. We tested the hypothesis that the geographic distribution of these H5N1 infections was modulated by the long-term wintering line, the 0 °C isotherm marking the limit beyond which areas are largely unsuitable for wintering waterfowl. Given the particularly cold 2005-2006 European winter, we also considered the satellite-derived contemporary frost conditions. This brought us to select the long-term maximum rather than the mean January 0 °C isotherm as the best approximation for the 2005-2006 wintering line. Our analysis shows that H5N1 detection sites were closer to the wintering line than would be expected by chance, even when the geographic distribution of water bird wintering sites was accounted for. We argue that partial frost conditions in water bodies are conducive to bird congregation, and this may have enhanced H5N1 transmission and local spread. Because the environmental virus load also would build up in these hot spots, H5N1 virus may have readily persisted during the spring, at least in cooler areas. We conclude that H5N1 introduction, spread, and persistence in Europe may have been enhanced by the cold 2005-2006 winter.