Analyses of inequalities related to prevention and cancer therapeutics/care show disparities between countries with different economic standing, and within countries with high Gross Domestic Product. The development of basic technological and biological research provides clinical and prevention opportunities that make their implementation into healthcare systems more complex, mainly due to the growth of Personalized/Precision Cancer Medicine (PCM). Initiatives like the USA-Cancer Moonshot and the EU-Mission on Cancer and Europe\'s Beating Cancer Plan are initiated to boost cancer prevention and therapeutics/care innovation and to mitigate present inequalities. The conference organized by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in collaboration with the European Academy of Cancer Sciences discussed the inequality problem, dependent on the economic status of a country, the increasing demands for infrastructure supportive of innovative research and its implementation in healthcare and prevention programs. Establishing translational research defined as a coherent cancer research continuum is still a challenge. Research has to cover the entire continuum from basic to outcomes research for clinical and prevention modalities. Comprehensive Cancer Centres (CCCs) are of critical importance for integrating research innovations to preclinical and clinical research, as for ensuring state-of-the-art patient care within healthcare systems. International collaborative networks between CCCs are necessary to reach the critical mass of infrastructures and patients for PCM research, and for introducing prevention modalities and new treatments effectively. Outcomes and health economics research are required to assess the cost-effectiveness of new interventions, currently a missing element in the research portfolio. Data sharing and critical mass are essential for innovative research to develop PCM. Despite advances in cancer research, cancer incidence and prevalence is growing. Making cancer research infrastructures accessible for all patients, considering the increasing inequalities, requires science policy actions incentivizing research aimed at prevention and cancer therapeutics/care with an increased focus on patients\' needs and cost-effective healthcare.

The COVID-19 pandemic has severely impacted Europe, resulting in a high caseload and deaths that varied by country. The second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic has breached the borders of Europe. Public health surveillance is necessary to inform policy and guide leaders.
This study aimed to provide advanced surveillance metrics for COVID-19 transmission that account for weekly shifts in the pandemic, speed, acceleration, jerk, and persistence, to better understand countries at risk for explosive growth and those that are managing the pandemic effectively.
We performed a longitudinal trend analysis and extracted 62 days of COVID-19 data from public health registries. We used an empirical difference equation to measure the daily number of cases in Europe as a function of the prior number of cases, the level of testing, and weekly shift variables based on a dynamic panel model that was estimated using the generalized method of moments approach by implementing the Arellano-Bond estimator in R.
New COVID-19 cases slightly decreased from 158,741 (week 1, January 4-10, 2021) to 152,064 (week 2, January 11-17, 2021), and cumulative cases increased from 22,507,271 (week 1) to 23,890,761 (week 2), with a weekly increase of 1,383,490 between January 10 and January 17. France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom had the largest 7-day moving averages for new cases during week 1. During week 2, the 7-day moving average for France and Spain increased. From week 1 to week 2, the speed decreased (37.72 to 33.02 per 100,000), acceleration decreased (0.39 to -0.16 per 100,000), and jerk increased (-1.30 to 1.37 per 100,000).
The United Kingdom, Spain, and Portugal, in particular, are at risk for a rapid expansion in COVID-19 transmission. An examination of the European region suggests that there was a decrease in the COVID-19 caseload between January 4 and January 17, 2021. Unfortunately, the rates of jerk, which were negative for Europe at the beginning of the month, reversed course and became positive, despite decreases in speed and acceleration. Finally, the 7-day persistence rate was higher during week 2 than during week 1. These measures indicate that the second wave of the pandemic may be subsiding, but some countries remain at risk for new outbreaks and increased transmission in the absence of rapid policy responses.

To report the changes in volume and characteristics of medical activities in the Vatican City State during COVID-19 pandemic.
Data for general / emergency procedures , specialty consultations, radiology examinations and diagnostic procedures delivered by the Directorate of Health and Hygiene of the Vatican City State were retrospectively analysed. Analysis focused on the entire year 2020 and on the lockdown period 9 March - 18 May 2020.
In 2020, 73.932 procedures were performed compared to 95.218 in 2019 (-22.4%). During lockdown, general / emergency activities decreased by 61.1%, specialty consultations by 85.3%, radiology examinations by 95.8%, and diagnostic procedures by 96.5%. A decrease was found for nearly all specialties; the most affected were occupational medicine and dermatology, whilst an increase was found for legal medicine, psychiatry and angiology.
Medical activities of the Vatican City State have been severely impacted, especially during the first months of the pandemic. However, organizational efforts allowed rapid restoration to near-normal volumes.

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The United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development promotes the \"Leaving no one behind\" principle and sets goals in areas of critical importance. This principle has become extraordinarily important during the COVID-19 pandemic, and is especially relevant for fragile populations, such as people experiencing homelessness. Homeless persons live in congregate and poor hygiene settings that may favor virus transmission, often have underling physical and mental comorbidities that place them at high risk of severe forms of COVID-19, and have limited access to public healthcare and social services. In addition, the homeless are often overlooked by safety and health monitoring actions. All of these factors, taken together, place homeless persons at high risk of being left behind. It is therefore of utmost importance to put in place adequate public health measures to limit spread of infection among homeless persons, rapidly identify and isolate asymptomatic and minimally symptomatic subjects, promptly and appropriately treat positive cases, and correctly handle the entire socioeconomic environment of vulnerable people.

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Although the practice of autopsy on the Pope\'s corpse was performed from the 16th century, autopsy reports are only rarely analysed, and never with the aim of investigating the real causes of the death from a concomitant medical and historical point of view. Here, for the first time, we report on the discovery of new unpublished documents from the Vatican Secret Archives and their investigation by a scientific and inter-disciplinary approach. This analysis allows us to draw new conclusions on the true cause of Leo XII\'s mysterious death. His sudden death, that occurred on February 10th, 1829 after a short illness, particularly struck the public. Suspicions of poisoning or surgeon\'s guilt or inexperience and even the shadow of a venereal disease, contributed to create a \"black legend\" on his pontificate and death. On the contrary, the present paleopathographic analysis points toward a new conclusion. The regular use of catheterization with a silver syringe provided an easy access for bacterial superinfection, confirmed by the observed early emphysematous stage of the corpse. So, the most substantiated hypothesis concerning the cause of Leo XII\'s death indicates a severe form of sepsis, exacerbated by a weakened state due to chronic hemorrhoids.

The conference \"Climate change, air pollution and health\" was held at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. The data presented highlighted that air pollution is a major, under-recognized and modifiable risk factor for stroke and heart disease. Air pollution causes 7.6% of all deaths making it the fifth cause of death globally, and this figure is expected to increase by 50% by 2050. Particulate matter causes endothelial dysfunction and induces thrombosis by altering reactive oxygen species, nitric oxide, insulin resistance, and lipid levels. Thirty-three articles published since 2002 were reviewed to assess the relation between air pollution and stroke with age, geographical location, particulate and gaseous matter type, duration of exposure, previous stroke, and comorbidities. It remains to be defined if air pollution has pathophysiological effects that preferentially predispose individuals to ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke. There is ample evidence showing an association between acute and chronic exposure to PM2.5 or gaseous pollutants with stroke. This potentially avoidable scenario and its dramatic consequences are heavily under-recognized by health professionals and the wider public. Preventive measures in people at high vascular risk are warranted. Procrastination in implementing efforts to stop the current worldwide course of worsening air pollution is the seed of a potential global health catastrophe.

The Pontifical Academy for Life (PAV) is an academic institution of the Holy See (Vatican), which aims to develop and promote Catholic teachings on questions of biomedical ethics. Palliative care (PC) experts from around the world professing different faiths were invited by the PAV to develop strategic recommendations for the global development of PC (\"PAL-LIFE group\").
Thirteen experts in PC advocacy participated in an online Delphi process. In four iterative rounds, participants were asked to identify the most significant stakeholder groups and then propose for each, strategic recommendations to advance PC. Each round incorporated the feedback from previous rounds until consensus was achieved on the most important recommendations. In a last step, the ad hoc group was asked to rank the stakeholders\' groups by order of importance on a 13-point scale and to propose suggestions for implementation. A cluster analysis provided a classification of the stakeholders in different levels of importance for PC development.
Thirteen stakeholder groups and 43 recommendations resulted from the first round, and, of those, 13 recommendations were chosen as the most important (1 for each stakeholder group). Five groups had higher scores. The recommendation chosen for these top 5 groups were as follows: (1) Policy makers: Ensure universal access to PC; (2) Academia: Offer mandatory PC courses to undergraduates; (3) Healthcare workers: PC professionals should receive adequate certification; (4) Hospitals and healthcare centers: Every healthcare center should ensure access to PC medicines; and (5) PC associations: National Associations should be effective advocates and work with their governments in the process of implementing international policy framework. A recommendation for each of the remaining eight groups is also presented.
This white paper represents a position statement of the PAV developed through a consensus process in regard to advocacy strategies for the advancement of PC in the world.