COVID-19 Updates - Jun 2020

The voice of European Dietetics 
Welcome to your fortnightly EFAD Newsflash - please share this important update with your colleagues and ask them to subscribe. 

Now that the first COVID-19 patients are starting to be discharged from hospital wards, these patients are being directed towards our first-line dietitians to begin their recovery phase post- hospitalisation. The information these discharged patients receive in terms of nutritional guidance in their home-setting is often limited.

First-line dietitians are being expected to support these discharged COVID-19 patients following their hospitalization. It is thus important that there are clear guidelines and a care pathway in place. Based on the available literature and insights gathered from these patients’ first experiences in their recovery phase, dietitians in the Netherlands have created the 'Nutrition during the recovery of COVID-19' care pathway. These guidelines are intended for all dietitians working in the primary healthcare setting and who are managing this patient group. 

Read the guidelines; available in Dutch and English.

WHO publishes survey results on impact of COVID-19

Prevention and treatment services for noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) have been severely disrupted since the COVID-19 pandemic began, according to recent results from a WHO survey.

The survey, which was completed by 155 countries during a three week period in May, confirmed that the impact is global, but that low-income countries are most affected. This situation is of significant concern because many people living with NCDs are at higher risk of severe COVID-19-related illness and death.

Find out more.

Maintaining essential health services

Maintaining essential health services: operational guidance for the COVID-19 context is guidance developed by WHO. It recommends practical actions that countries can take at national, regional and local levels to reorganise and safely maintain access to high-quality, essential health services in the pandemic context. It also outlines sample indicators for monitoring essential health services, and describes considerations on when to stop and restart services as COVID-19 transmission recedes and surges.

Read the guidance. 

Webinar on nutritional care in long-term care facilities: save the date! 

A new webinar in relation to COVID-19 will take place on Thursday 2 July at 7pm CET  entitled “Nutritional care in long-term care facilities and learnings from the COVID-19 pandemic”. A panel of international experts from The Netherlands, Sweden and Ireland will cover the nutritional challenges in the care home setting, highlight new evidence for nutrition support and share practical guidance on the implementation of nutrition care pathways in this vulnerable population in the context of COVID-19. 

Hosted by Nutricia with special thanks to EFAD for cooperation and support of the webinar. Look out for registration opening soon!

Launch of the full EuDAP report

The European Dietetic Action Plan (EuDAP) 2015-2020, launched by EFAD in October 2015, is a commitment by dietitians throughout Europe to take actions that will achieve better nutrition and sustainable health, through pro-active engagement with Health 2020 and the European Food and Nutrition Action Plan (2015-2020).

For the first time, the EuDAP Full Report 2018 has been created in the form of an online database. The data in this report is based on European dietetic activities from 2018, which were collected in the 2019 EuDAP Survey.

The EuDAP database is now open to collect information about all the actions dietitians undertook in 2019 and to record all their actions to combat COVID-19 in 2020.

Read the report in full.

73rd health assembly ends with global commitment to COVID-19 response

The 73rd World Health Assembly - its first-ever to be held virtually - delegates adopted a landmark resolution to bring the world together to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

The resolution, co-sponsored by more than 130 countries, was adopted by consensus. It calls for the intensification of efforts to control the pandemic, and for equitable access to and fair distribution of all essential health technologies and products to combat the virus. It also calls for an independent and comprehensive evaluation of the global response, including, but not limited to, WHO’s performance.

Find out more.

Sugar intake guide

The European Society for Paediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition Committee on Nutrition have developed a guide to sugar intake in infants, children and adolescents.

This guide explains what sugar is, current recommendations for sugar intake and outlines the problems of overconsumption that exist. It goes on to explain the taste preference development of children (innate as well as postnatal) and then finally provides recommendations and practical advice on free sugar intake for children as well as the recommended drinks for children of differing ages.

See the guide.

The importance of nutrition and food for European patient groups

The key to establishing solid commitment and leverage by European and national stakeholders in nutritional care is participation of national and European patient organisations. In this article several examples are given of the added value of patient participation in nutritional care. A recent development is the translation of scientific nutritional guidelines from ESPEN in lay-versions for individual patients and patient groups. 

Read the paper in full (pg 9).

Impactful Communication: Meaningful Messages to Inspire Change

Learning to effectively build a message and communicate it to different audiences can help expand your reach, build your career, and inspire change in food and nutrition.

During this free, two-hour interactive workshop, three nutrition professionals and expert communicators will share their experience crafting and delivering messages for consumers, the media, and policy makers to enact change and build awareness around food, nutrition, and agriculture. A portion of the workshop will include interactive small group breakouts with the opportunity to discuss and put learnings into practice with fellow professionals.

This workshop is sponsored by Bayer Crop Science. Participants will receive a certificate of participation. It has also been approved for two hours of continuing education for RDNs from the Commission on Dietetic Registration.

This work shop will take place Tuesday 23 June at 5pm (CET).

Register now