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Caspar Geenen

@caspargeenen.bsky.social

Working on a PhD at Clinical Microbiology Lab, KU Leuven. Investigating new ways to track the spread of infections. #IDEpi

15 Posts101 Follower 128 Folgt

Caspar Geenen @caspargeenen.bsky.social · 10mo ago

In the COVID-19 Omicron surge, #KULeuven combined contact tracing with sequencing. Only 1/3 of contacts shared the same strain 🤯, so most people misperceived where they got infected. @thibaut-jonathan.bsky.social and team show how to assess contact tracing accuracy in the future! #IDSky #EpiSky

A novel methodology for assessing contact tracing precision: Phylogenetic validation of a contact tracing program for COVID-19 in Belgium

During the COVID-19 pandemic, contact tracing was widely used to limit virus propagation and implement targeted disease control measures. It can howev…

sciencedirect.com

Jelle Matthijnssens @jellematthijnssens.bsky.social · 11mo ago

🚨 New paper in Eurosurveillance - @karatasmustafa.bsky.social We used shotgun metagenomics on indoor air in a Belgian daycare to track respiratory, enteric & skin viruses. 👉 40/42 samples contained human viruses—even when kids seemed healthy! 📄 Read here: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41000028/

Mustafa Karatas @karatasmustafa.bsky.social · 11mo ago

New paper out! We sampled indoor air for a year in a Belgian daycare and used shotgun metagenomics to track viruses. We recovered many viral genomes of interest. What would you sample next? Read at @eurosurveillance.org @emmanuel-microb.bsky.social, @jellematthijnssens.bsky.social -->

Figure 3. (A–N) Sequencing coverage plots of genetic sequences of viruses detected in indoor air samples of a daycare and phylogenetic analyses of sequences of (O) two human bocaviruses and (P) one RSV identified in some samples, Belgium, January–December 2022

Caspar Geenen @caspargeenen.bsky.social · last yr.

New study on reaching people with undiagnosed tuberculosis in Rwanda: “… our results suggest that analyzing satellite imagery may allow the identification of urban areas where inhabitants are at higher risk of tuberculosis.”

Mauro Faccin@maurofaccin.bsky.social · last yr.

Using satellite images and computer vision algorithms, we can detect urban areas at high risk of tuberculosis. Check out our new paper on this: publichealth.jmir.org/2025/1/e68355

Yassen Tcholakov @yassentch.bsky.social · last yr.

One of my favorite #ESCMIDGlobal sessions is "Year in #PublicHealth". Yi Lang Hsu summarizes outbreaks that occurred in the last year: Mpox, Avian Influenza, Marburg, Oropouche! #PublicHealthSky #IDsky #ESCMIDGlobal2025

Ilan Schwartz @germhuntermd.bsky.social · last yr.

Our patients persecuted; colleagues and public health institutions under attack. Our field needs to rise up & fight back Silence=Death Redux: Infectious Diseases, Public Health, and the Imperative to Resist Viewpoint by @ericmeyerowitz.bsky.social & me OpenAccess: academic.oup.com/cid/advance-...

Silence=Death Redux: Infectious Diseases, Public Health, and the Imperative to Resist

The second Trump administration has released a torrent of executive policies hostile to public health, science, and marginalized populations. We outline th

academic.oup.com

eBioMedicine – The Lancet Discovery Science @ebiomedicine.bsky.social · last yr.

New #kuleuven study: indoor air sampling to monitor respiratory infections in childcare settings. 🧒🏽🏫 Key findings: 🔬 Sensitive pathogen detection 🌬️ Correlation with CO2 & infection rates 📈 Early outbreak warnings 👇 www.thelancet.com/journals/ebi... #PublicHealth #Epidemiology #RespiratoryInfections

Interpretation of indoor air surveillance for respiratory infections: a prospective longitudinal observational study in a childcare setting

Our results suggest that air sampling could provide sensitive, responsive epidemiological indicators for the surveillance of respiratory pathogens. Using air CO2 concentrations to normalise such signa...

thelancet.com

Rodrigo Henríquez @rodrigohenriquezbe.bsky.social · 2y ago

New publication by Christelle Jouego & cols. maps TB hotspots in Cameroon using OpenStreetMap & WorldPop data. Reveals up to 53% of TB cases go undiagnosed in some regions 🧐. Urgent need to reallocate diagnostic tools where they're needed most. #GlobalHealth #TB www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Mapping of regions with low tuberculosis notification and estimation of diagnostic gaps in Cameroon, evidence from OpenStreetMap and WorldPop data

Scientific Reports - Mapping of regions with low tuberculosis notification and estimation of diagnostic gaps in Cameroon, evidence from OpenStreetMap and WorldPop data

nature.com

Caspar Geenen @caspargeenen.bsky.social · 2y ago

New study: analysing indoor air to detect outbreaks. “… Air sampling could provide sensitive, responsive #epidemiology indicators for surveillance of respiratory pathogens…” See thread for details and previous air sampling work with @emmanuel-microb.bsky.social… #IDEpi #IDsky #PedsID #KULeuven 🛟

Heatmap chart showing the detection of various pathogens over different sampling weeks (W9 to W30). Pathogens are listed on the y-axis, including viruses and bacteria such as Streptococcus pneumoniae, human coronaviruses, influenza viruses, and others. The x-axis represents the sampling weeks. Black dots indicate detection of the pathogen in the air. The colour gradient, ranging from white to dark red, represents the proportion of positive paper tissue samples, with darker shades indicating higher proportions. This alt text was generated by ChatGPT.

A chart showing the relative detection of pathogens in air versus paper tissues, with pathogens listed on the y-axis (e.g., Pneumocystis jirovecii, herpes simplex virus type 1, SARS-CoV-2). The x-axis represents ∆Ct values, where negative values indicate higher detection in air and positive values indicate higher detection in paper tissues. Red dots represent the mean ∆Ct for each pathogen, and horizontal red error bars represent the 95% confidence intervals. Individual grey dots indicate data points for each sample. Pathogens are arranged by their relative prevalence in air and paper tissues. This alt text was generated by ChatGPT.

Jelle Matthijnssens @jellematthijnssens.bsky.social · 2y ago

🚨 #PhDPosition Opportunity Alert 🚨 Join the Matthijnssens-lab @KU_Leuven to explore the early-life #virome dynamics and their impact on immunity in infants from Ghana & Zambia! 🌍🧬 📅 Start: June 2025 🔗 kuleuven.be/personeel/jobs… #microbiome #bioinformatics #phage #NGS

kuleuven.be

Kaitlin Sullivan @kaitsulliva.bsky.social · 2y ago

It's not so much mutations spontaneously emerging in individuals that is most concerning, but the fact that flu season is ramping up, giving H5N1 more opportunities to mix with human influenza strains, @angierasmussen.bsky.social told me. www.nbcnews.com/health/healt...

In severe bird flu cases, the virus can mutate as it lingers in the body

As the seasonal flu picks up, there are even more opportunities for the bird flu to acquire mutations as the different influenza viruses mix.

nbcnews.com

Caspar Geenen @caspargeenen.bsky.social · 2y ago

IDEpi: a dedicated Bluesky feed for Infectious Disease Epidemiology. This feed collects posts tagged with #IDEpi or keyword combinations like #IDSky + #EpiSky. Comments and suggestions welcome! Access here: bsky.app/profile/did:...

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Caspar Geenen @caspargeenen.bsky.social · 2y ago

Hello Bluesky! A quick overview of what we learned doing contact tracing for COVID-19 at KU Leuven. #IDEpi #PublicHealth #EpiSky #IDSky @Emmanuel_microb 1️⃣ Tracing sources of infections (backward contact tracing) could efficiently slow COVID-19 spread. (Raymenants, Geenen, et al; Nat Comms) More👇

Empirical evidence on the efficiency of backward contact tracing in COVID-19 - Nature Communications

Backward contact tracing aims to identify individuals who were infected by the same person as infected an index case, and has been shown to be effective in modelling studies of SARS-COV-2. Here, the a...

nature.com