NORDPID

NORDPID (Nordic Research Network for Pediatric Infectious Diseases) is a working group established in 2018 that serves as a platform for collaborative research in the field of pediatric infectious diseases between the five Nordic countries. The primary aim of the working group is to identify and facilitate research that would benefit from the participation and input of all Nordic countries and produce evidence about clinically important questions that could also inform decision-making in the field.

Contact: Terho Heikkinen, Department of Pediatrics, University of Turku, Finland.

(terho.heikkinen@utu.fi)

NordicAST

The NordicAST (Nordic Committee on Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing) is a working group for methodology in antimicrobial susceptibility testing including members from Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Iceland. The group was first formed on 1 January 2011 by Sweden, Norway and Denmark but in 2016 Finland and Iceland were included in the group and the official language was changed to English. The group members are appointed by the Swedish Society for Medical Microbiology (three members), the Norwegian Working Group on Antibiotics (NWGA; three members) the Danish methodology group (Danres-M; three members) and the Finnish Study Group for Antimicrobial Resistance (FIRe; three members).

More information is found on the NordicAST website.

Tick Borne Diseases Group

The NSCMID tick-borne diseases group is a multi-professional network for exchanging and sharing knowledge in the field of tick-borne infections. It originates mainly from collaborations formed within ScandTick Innovation, an EU-funded inter-regional project in the Öresund-Kattegatt-Skagerrak region. In 2015 the network was expanded to include colleagues from Finland, and in 2016 it was included as an NSCMID working group. The group will organize workshops and meetings (such as the biannual NordTick meeting), promote collaborative research projects and support networking between physicians and researchers both within and outside the Nordic countries.

Contact: Anna J Henningsson, M.D, Ph.D., Region Jönköping county, Sweden. Per-Eric Lindgren, professor, Linköping University, Sweden.

High level isolation working group

 The group consists of doctors and nurses who work in hospitals that have high level isolation fascilities. The group met for the first time in Copenhagen in december 2016 where they exchanged experiences and knowledge about preparedness, planning and caretaking of patients with highly contagious diseases. The group found that the Nordic countries have very similar fascilities and also similar challenges in this area and therefore may gain from a closer collaboration in the future sharing knowledge and practising together.

The group is led by a steering committee with members from Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland. They will arrange annual meetings to share experiences and have exercises and the group will work to harmonize protocols for infection prevention and control and medical management.