In the last decade, at least 405 sexually transmitted infections (STIs) have been detected in children under 14 years old in Catalonia. Although they are a growing public health problem throughout Europe, the increase in cases in the younger age groups particularly worries health authorities, which is why the Department of Health has announced that it is extending surveillance of these infections to 12-year-olds. Promotion and prevention among adolescents will also be strengthened, and there will be clinical referents for these infections in primary care teams. These are some of the measures in the new STI care model, with which the aim is to reduce the number of cases, as since 2010 they have increased by an average of 32.4% each year and, for the first time in Catalonia, more than 40,000 were diagnosed in 2024, the last year with available data.

While the hantavirus-affected cruise ship is already heading towards the Canary Islands, the unknowns about the origin of the outbreak remain open. The World Health Organization (WHO) has downplayed the possibility that the infection was caused by the presence of rodents on board the vessel, so the most probable hypothesis at this point is that the first two fatalities, a Dutch couple, had contracted the virus before boarding the ship and that, once there, they had infected other passengers. Argentina, from where the cruise ship departed, has reconstructed the journey of the man and woman before embarking on the sea voyage. In the last four months, they had been in a large part of this country, but also in Chile and Uruguay, on a bird-watching trip. The strain responsible for the outbreak is native to the Andes and circulates in some of the areas where the couple had been.

The luxury cruise ship MV Hondius is sailing towards the Canary Islands after being immobilized for a few days off the coast of Cape Verde due to a hantavirus outbreak that has caused three deaths and at least eight positive cases among the 147 people on board. In total, there are thirteen passengers and one crew member of Spanish nationality, of whom five reside in Catalonia. Health authorities are finalizing the care circuits for individuals once they disembark, but the Department of Health has already indicated that it is most likely that Catalans will undergo home isolation once they return home, provided they continue to be asymptomatic as they have been so far.

It is a little-known virus to the public, it is transmitted mainly through rodents and has 147 people paralyzed on a luxury cruise ship off the coast of Cape Verde. The outbreak of hantavirus at sea, which has caused three deaths and at least seven positive cases among passengers on the Dutch ship, has awakened the ghosts of the 2020 pandemic due to some of these parallels with the COVID-19 crisis. However, experts are adamant: human-to-human infection is possible, but the virus is not contagious enough. "It has no pandemic potential," states Fernando Salvador, a specialist from the infectious diseases service at the Vall d'Hebron Hospital, who clarifies that the pathogen has been known for a long time and outbreaks like this occur occasionally, but most cases are usually sporadic and without risk of explosive spread.

When Carmen Boer is asked about her health, she responds with a long, ironic "Oof..." before quickly reviewing her list of ailments. This year she will turn 91, she has overcome two cancers – one breast and one colon – she has heart failure, chronic bronchitis, and an incurable kidney disease. Every day she takes a dozen medications. "Ten or eleven," she says with a smile, without specifying. Last year she went to the emergency room six times due to decompensation, and on three occasions, she had to be hospitalized. However, since she became part of a program for complex chronic patients at Vall d'Hebron Hospital, she has not returned to the emergency room or required any admission.

It is 12 at night and Nancy is watching a movie on Netflix like many Catalans do before going to sleep. She, however, is doing it from her mobile, on a street in Barcelona, ​​sheltered from the cold with a parka she uses as a blanket. Next to her is another girl sleeping on the ground covered with several layers. She has taken off her shoes to sleep and Nancy is watching her shoes, although she doesn't know her name. They met in the queue in front of the accompaniment center for the regularization of migrant people on Miquel Bleach street, which started operating on Monday to respond to high demand. Like them, this week hundreds of people living and working in Catalonia have spent the night at the doors of municipal buildings and social entities to obtain the vulnerability report or the census and complete the process to obtain residency and have a work permit in order.

The age at which sexual relations are had has advanced, there is a lack of knowledge in the prevention of sexually transmitted infections and the use of condoms has been decreasing in recent years among adolescents. It is the perfect scenario for sexually transmitted infections to become increasingly frequent in minors, which is why Vall d'Hebron Hospital launched a sexual infection clinic specifically for patients between 13 and 17 years old in 2019. In that time, it has already seen 345 adolescents, 41 of whom were seen last year. Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are a public health problem throughout Europe, and in Catalonia, for the first time, more than 40,000 cases were diagnosed in one year.

A multitude of white coats demonstrated this Monday morning on Sardenya street in Barcelona, in the vicinity of the Sagrada Familia, to demand – for the tenth time since autumn – a health agreement that exclusively regulates the conditions of doctors. In front of dozens of disoriented tourists who were also photographing the protest, half a thousand doctors have once again demanded improvements in working conditions from both the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Health, whom they accuse of ignoring their demands. "We will maintain the pressure to the limit of our strength," stated the union's general secretary, Xavier Lleonart.

To improve muscle strength, to increase endurance, to have more energy, to have better performance, to recover faster from a tough training session... The growing interest in the gym and the obsession with perfect bodies have increased the consumption of a series of products designed to perform better and more during workouts and achieve better results. It is a fever for supplements such as protein shakes, creatine, magnesium, omega-3, or vitamin D, among others, which have become popular in recent years, especially through social networks like Instagram or TikTok. In some cases, the recommendation comes from users who do not have the training or expertise in nutrition or sports medicine, and experts warn that before starting to take any of these supplements, one must consult a professional.

This Friday, Barcelona inaugurated the first center in the State fully dedicated to the study of immunotherapy and one of the only ones in Europe, the CaixaResearch Institute. It is a pioneering center in the world that is born with the objective of studying the functioning of the immune system to use it as a tool for the control and treatment of some of the most frequent diseases in the world, such as cancer, Alzheimer's, or tuberculosis. With an event that was attended by the King of Spain, Felipe VI, the center has opened its doors to try to answer some of the great unknowns of health. For this first year, the infrastructure will have a budget of 10 million euros. When it is fully operational, the CaixaResearch Institute will have more than 400 scientists dedicated to improving people's health and lives through immunology. This discipline is at the forefront of modern medicine, and there are increasingly more treatments aimed at stimulating the body's defenses. In recent decades, immunotherapies have revolutionized the approach to some pathologies that until then had no cure, but their potential is broad and, still, little explored. "This center is being launched with the aspiration of becoming an international benchmark and will seek to develop research that practically improves people's quality of life," claimed the president of the "La Caixa" Foundation, Isidre Fainé. However, he warned that it will be a difficult and complex path and that it will take time to start obtaining results, although he expressed confidence that they will eventually arrive. Fainé presided over the inauguration ceremony, which was attended by King Felipe VI; the president of Catalonia, Salvador Illa; the delegate of the Spanish government in Catalonia, Carlos Prieto; the Minister of Health, Mónica García; and the Minister of Research and Universities, Núria Montserrat, as well as members of the "La Caixa" Foundation's board of trustees and the scientific council of the new center, which is led by the renowned oncologist and researcher Josep Tabernero. In fact, he was the one who explained the mission of the new center: to better understand the immune system and leverage this knowledge to improve health. "The CaixaResearch Institute aims to be a space where basic science, data science, and environmental study converge under the prism of immunology, with collaboration as the norm and innovation from the outset," claimed Tabernero. Attracting talent

The new center, driven by an investment of 100 million euros and an area of 20,000 m², is located opposite the CosmoCaixa Science Museum. The institute already has more than twenty active professionals and, when fully operational, will have the capacity to host 45 research groups and units. This makes it, according to sources from the La Caixa Foundation, a hub for attracting and retaining international talent to Barcelona. The same sources have clarified that the intention is to collaborate with the different institutes and hospitals that make up Catalonia's biomedical research ecosystem, not to incorporate staff from these centers. Among the researchers already working there are four group leaders: Gabriel Rabinovich, a doctor in biochemistry from the Institute of Biology and Experimental Medicine in Buenos Aires; Josep Dalmau, a neurologist and researcher at IDIBAPS-Clínic; Gemma Moncunill, an immunologist specializing in vaccines and infectious diseases; and Héctor Huerga, an immunologist specializing in aging. They will be joined by Maria Mittelbrunn, the current leader of the laboratory of immunometabolism and inflammation at the Severo Ochoa Molecular Biology Center, who has just joined the institute (she will start in the fall), and María Martínez, an immunologist who will join in July after completing her postdoctoral studies at the Champalimaud Foundation in Lisbon.Lines of research

Tabernero has explained that the immune system works on two very complementary levels. On the one hand, there is innate immunity, which acts immediately against external threats such as viruses and bacteria, and on the other, adaptive immunity, which produces a more precise response, capable of recognizing specific threats, learning from them, and generating memory, which protects us when these threats reappear. "It is thanks to this system that, for example, vaccines work and protect us throughout our lives," the expert detailed. Along these lines, the group led by Dr. Moncunill will work to improve the efficacy and duration of vaccines, especially in vulnerable populations, and to understand the impact of infections on the immune system.But the immune system also acts as an internal surveillance system, Tabernero indicated, so it has the capacity to detect and eliminate damaged, infected, or premalignant cells before they can trigger more serious diseases such as cancer. The research of the group led by Rabinovich will be aimed at trying to understand how the immune system can be manipulated to open new therapeutic avenues in cancer, inflammation, and autoimmunity. "When this system fails – whether because it responds little or because it responds excessively – diseases can appear ranging from cancer to autoimmune, cardiovascular, or neurodegenerative diseases, which we are still trying to understand," said the center's scientific leader. Therefore, Dalmau's team will focus on diseases in which the immune system mistakenly attacks certain proteins in neurons and alters the correct functioning of the brain. Finally, Mittelbrunn and his group's work will focus on identifying new therapeutic targets in inflammatory, cardiovascular, and neurodegenerative diseases that allow for improved health in advanced ages.Catalonia is one of the regions in Europe where more clinical trials in cancer are conducted, it has a diverse and increasingly extensive ecosystem of research centers and hospitals, and from 2028 onwards, it will have a large hub of biomedicine crowned with the new Barcelona Biomedical Research Park (PRBB), in the Ciutadella del Conocimiento. For Ernest Nadal, research director of the Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO), this very favorable context for research in Barcelona is the legacy of many researchers from the city, and from now on they will have a new agent for scientific collaboration. "That they bet on immunotherapy is not by chance. It is one of the most transformative treatments in cancer, but also in other diseases, and there are still many challenges and much room for improvement," he values.

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For a long time we have known that we could not live without the trillions of bacteria we have in our gut, as they are responsible for essential physiological functions, but in recent decades the scientific community has taken a step further and has linked this intestinal microbiota with the brain. For example, studies have discovered that people with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's or Parkinson's have alterations in the composition of intestinal bacteria, although it is not yet known whether it is a cause or consequence of the disease. Now researchers at University College of London have discovered in a study that the microbiota can reveal if a person has a high risk of developing Parkinson's disease before symptoms appear.

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Catalonia has the right temperature, the type of mosquitoes, and the necessary flow of travelers for tropical diseases to become increasingly frequent, especially during the summer months. The climate crisis is advancing relentlessly, and every year thousands of people travel to areas where these pathologies circulate intensely, increasing the risk of autochthonous cases and for transmission to become endemic. Chikungunya disease is one of those infections that worries health authorities, and since the beginning of the year, 43 cases have already been detected throughout the State, seven times more than last year in the same period, when only 6 had been diagnosed. Of these, 28 are in Catalonia, all imported cases from countries where outbreaks are currently occurring.

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Science is determined to know more about cancer because, the better its functioning is understood, the better the treatments that are developed to combat it. This is known as personalized medicine. Years ago, we were only able to diagnose a breast tumor, but with the advances of recent decades, professionals can accurately know what type of breast cancer the patient suffers from and what therapy best suits them to tackle it. This is the objective pursued by the Catherine clinical trial, from the Vall d'Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO), which will test an experimental therapy for patients with a type of tumor that has no treatment.

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Less than 24 hours after the Council of Ministers approved the royal decree that will serve to regularize the situation of more than half a million immigrants throughout the State, long queues have returned in the center of Barcelona to obtain all the documentation to carry out the procedures. One of the points where a significant number of people have accumulated is the Citizen Attention Office of Barcelona in Plaça Sant Miquel, next to the cathedral. This Wednesday morning the queue to access this service goes around the building and the complaint that "things are not moving forward" is repeated. Most have been waiting for three hours. Although there are citizens waiting to carry out all kinds of procedures, there are also many people who come to do paperwork to be able to access the regularization process, which begins this Thursday, April 16, remotely.

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The relentless rise in sexual infections in Catalonia in recent years has led to over 40,000 cases being diagnosed in a single year for the first time. This is not an isolated increase: these infections are a public health problem across Europe that health authorities attribute to a paradigm shift in sexual behaviors, especially among young people, who use condoms less, have more sexual partners, and engage in more behaviors considered risky. One of the infections that is particularly concerning is gonorrhea, which, according to a study, has tripled in recent years in Catalonia: the incidence of the disease has increased by 236% since 2019, reaching 152.7 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in the 2022-2023 period.

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Medicine showed its most spectacular face seventeen years ago with the functional cure of the first patient with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). But now the case of Timothy Ray Brown, known globally as the Berlin patient, is no longer an exception: there are now ten people worldwide who have managed to eliminate the virus through a complex but effective stem cell transplant. The most recent case is that of the so-called Oslo patient, a 62-year-old Norwegian and seropositive man, who was also diagnosed with a cancer of the immune system and required this intervention. Four years later, and despite having stopped receiving antiretroviral drugs, the virus remains undetectable. With one peculiarity compared to previous cases: his donor is his own brother.

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Up to 692 new first-year medicine places in Catalan universities for the 2031-2032 academic year. This is the commitment announced this Friday by the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, during the Conference on Medicine at the Palau de Pedralbes, and it aims to improve access to these studies, which currently have an insufficient offer of 1,333 places, as for every vacancy there are almost four students who apply for it. This is a historic demand from the health and university sectors, which have been calling for years to increase the number of doctors trained in Catalonia to meet the needs of the system, where there is a structural shortage of professionals. The increase in places will also serve to lower the cut-off grade for medicine studies, which will favor more students being able to enroll.

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It has been a year since she received blood transfusions, but until very recently she needed one a day to survive. In the last decade, she tried up to nine different treatments, using all sorts of strategies, such as antibodies, steroids, or immunosuppressant drugs. But none of them had a lasting impact. This is the case of a 47-year-old woman with three complex and serious diseases that caused her immune system – that is, the body's defenses – to mistakenly attack her own cells as if they were an external threat.

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The most symbolic images of the Artemis II space mission can now be admired. The White House has distributed the first two photographs in which the Earth can be seen from the far side of the Moon and another image of the total solar eclipse that the crew has experienced from space. "Humanity from the other side" ("Humanity, from the other side", in the original message), has been the text accompanying the images distributed from the official account of the presidency of the United States.

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When Lucía goes down to the park to play, the other children look at her because she doesn't behave like them. Jose, her father, explains helplessly that they had to change her school because her classmates bullied her without the teachers or families doing anything to prevent it. He is also a teacher and understands that the other children look at her when she plays; they are young and have surely never seen a girl like Lucía, who has a very rare disease that only affects 30 children worldwide. However, he does not understand the adults' lack of empathy and wonders why no one protected her at that school.

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