As an urgent response in the field of public health is needed, the World Health Organization (WHO) is establishing a WHO COVID-19 Reference Laboratory Network comprised of laboratories able to provide confirmatory testing for COVID-19. The Laboratoire national de santé (LNS) has been granted this status in August 2022.   The attributed status highlights the […]

“Integrated surveillance system is an essential element in national respiratory virus pandemic preparedness plan.”   The winter season is fast approaching, and the debate about how the respiratory viruses spread has restarted. Citizens wonder whether the COVID-19 cases will show an upsurge or whether we will have a severe influenza season. While the public health […]

The new European project BE READY starts, aiming to improve the EU’s capacity to prepare and respond to emerging infectious health threats. On September 19th, the BE READY project launched publically its activities in Paris. The project objective is to create a European Partnership for Pandemic Preparedness and consolidate the One Health approach through the […]

Some weeks before Easter 2022, the United Kingdom (UK) reported to the ECDC surveillance system Epipulse, a cluster of 18 cases with a monophasic Salmonella Typhimurium infection. Comparisons with the reference genome provided by the UK revealed a multi-country outbreak involving 445 cases, as of 3 June 2022, in 12 EU/EEA countries, the UK, Canada, […]

The LNS Microbiology Department and the Luxembourg based start-up VoiceMed are collaborating on the COVID+ VOICES study. VoiceMed combines the use of sound analysis and artificial intelligence (AI) to tackle respiratory diseases such as COVID-19 and asthma. VoiceMed was recently awarded the title of Luxembourg Healthcare Startup of the Year 2022.   The COVID+ VOICES […]

The Laboratoire national de santé (LNS) is a public institution under the supervision of the Ministry of Health in Luxembourg. LNS is organized as a multidisciplinary institute and supported by a professional services team, the LNS includes four scientific departments in the fields of medical biology, microbiology, forensic medicine, and health protection, in addition to […]

In May 2022, several countries around the world – many of them European – started to detect monkeypox cases with no known connection to regions traditionally considered endemic and informed the World Health Organization (WHO). On the 21st of July, the WHO declared it as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. 58 cases have […]

“In terms of work, we have improved a lot. We have simplified certain things, we have put procedures in place, and we have put forward many things at the same time. Thanks to COVID-19, we have many more resources, and we have been able to make much more progress than before.” The COVID-19 crisis was […]

Making the difference   It was not difficult to say goodbye to 2021, another challenging year due to the COVID-19 pandemic where our human and professional capacities were overstretched and tested to the maximum, and yet another year in which our department reached new milestones in our diagnostic services. We received 28,318 patients in our […]

“The pandemic affected my work in a way that I did nothing else than pandemic work for at least a year and a half. Nevertheless, we learnt a lot, not only about COVID-19 but also about collaboration and teamwork.” Dr. Anke Wienecke-Baldacchino The COVID-19 crisis was an unprecedented event. How is the Bio-IT service is […]

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) awarded LNS – Microbiology the HERA incubator grant (4.8 million euros) to expand and widen the spectrum of activities provided by the LNS’ Luxembourg Genomic and Molecular Microbiology Unit (LUX-GEMM) in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.   The Microbiology department of the Laboratoire national de santé […]

The COVID-19 pandemic that started in 2020 is still causing a major health crisis around the world, reaching more than 400 million confirmed cases to date. Generally triggering mild symptoms that are usually associated with a common cold, the COVID-19 infection tends to increase in severity with age, especially amongst those above 60 years old, […]

During February, the LNS Microbiology department’s team attended a series of interactive and insightful Agile courses offered by the experts from the House of Training and the Agile Partner. With a dynamic approach to the trials of project management and workload management, the team was challenged to rethink its way of working.   The Microbiology […]

The Laboratoire national de santé (LNS) is participating in the CORONAVAR project (FNR COVID-19 project) coordinated by the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST), which consists of detecting and characterising SARS-CoV-2 variants circulating in Luxembourg wastewater.   During the COVID-19 pandemic, which generates a large proportion of asymptomatic cases, sewage monitoring can be a […]

The international landscape of the evolution of the COVID19 pandemic had shown a new wave of COVID19 this autumn with health authorities worldwide addressing the new wave. The Department of Microbiology is contributing to the national strategy by providing specialised RT-PCR testing, serology testing, in addition to its sequencing services. The testing activities are led […]

Making the difference Being passionate about our work is a drive that allows us to thrive in any work environment. Since I joined the Microbiology department in 2019, I felt blessed to be surrounded by great people who had vast experience in their field and a huge willingness to rise to challenges, and what a […]

from left to right: Vanessa Marani (ABL), Mégane Migliorini (LNS), Dr. sc. Sibel Berger (LNS) and Remon Soliman (ABL)   The Laboratoire national de santé and Advanced Biological Laboratories (ABL) announced the first public-private partnership hosted at our department to develop an innovative diagnostic solution for COVID-19. The project, called INNOV-COV-ID, is co-financed by the […]

As the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has shown, epidemics and pandemics are not just things from the past. In our modern society, we are more connected than ever and this offers a unique opportunity to unite our forces and create new systems to share information about emerging pathogens more rapidly, invest in surveillance and stimulate the development […]

Meta-analysis of the clinical performance of commercial SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid and antibody tests up to 22nd  August 2020 The LNS’s microbiology department was involved in an international meta-analysis gathering evaluations of SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic accuracy for nucleic acid and antibody tests. This work aim at assessing the reliability of the SARS-CoV-2 tests available on the market, […]

„A lot of what is happening right now – not only in medicine – is caused by humans and can thus be positively influenced” Professor Dr. Friedrich Mühlschlegel The COVID-19 crisis was an unprecedented event. How did the LNS react to this pandemic? COVID-19 was indeed unprecedented. At the very beginning of 2020, no one […]

Despite the ongoing pandemic, the Laboratoire national de santé’s (LNS) third stint at the 15th edition of the Luxembourg Open Days event was a great success. After a hiatus in 2020, the LNS once again opened its doors to the general public so that they could get acquainted with the different fields of research and […]

On Friday, 15th October, the LNS officially hosted the students of the recently established Bachelor of Medicine (BMED) from the Faculty of Science, Technology and Medicine at University of Luxembourg. During three afternoon sessions, the second year medical students of the program will be familiarized with our work. The LNS team, comprising experts from the […]

On 24th November 2021, South Africa notified the World Health Organization (WHO) of the presence of a new SARS-CoV-2 lineage : B.1.1.529. After a rapid assessment of the situation, the WHO designated it as a new variant of concern (VOC): Omicron*. 1 As of 29th November 2021 at 21:00 CET, 179 cases have been reported […]