NSCMID chairman´s report 2024/2025

Annual meeting 2024. The 40th NSCMID meeting was held 28th August - 1st September in Oslo, Norway. The scientific program included sessions on a wide variety of subjects in the field of infectious diseases, paediatric infections, infection control and clinical microbiology. Topics included endocarditis, respiratory infections, Pro et contra discussion about Gentamicin - does it have a future in the Nordics?, viral hepatitis, infections in people who inject drugs, Antimicrobial Stewardship in hospital practice in the Nordic countries, new vaccines, Effect of infection control measures, Microbiology in the future, and Infections related to migration and travel to the Nordics. In addition, sessions about Hot topics, Invited Young Scientists, and a poster presentation were held. The Honorary lecture was given by professor Arnfinn Sundsfjord from Tromsø, Norway on “Diagnostics in a time of increasing antibiotic resistance”.

The meeting was an on-site meeting with about 250 registered delegates and many of the presenters participated in the full congress and contributed to the scientific discussions. About 30 abstracts were submitted and presented at the meeting. In addition to all the Scientific events the meeting also provided several social activities like welcome reception at the Oslo city hall, City walk and Congress dinner.

2024 NSCMID Annual General Meeting (AGM) was held in Oslo, Norway 31st August 2024. Arnfinn Sundsfjord was elected as the chairman and Lena Rós Ásmundsdóttir as the secretary of the AGM. There were several replacements in the board. The following members of the board had decided to leave:
• Anders Johansson (ID, Sweden; board member for many years (since 2012?) including being General Secretary until 2023)
• Magnús Gottfreðsson (ID, Iceland; board member for many years (since 2012?), Chairman 2018-2021 and Past Chairman 2021-2024),
• Hanna Jarva (CM, Finland; board member since 2021) resigned from the board.

NSCMID thanks them for their greatly appreciated work and contribution to the society during the past years.

New members of the board are:
• Valtýr Stefánsson Thors, paediatric ID consultant, Reykjavik, Iceland. Appointed by the Icelandic ID society.
• Antti Hakanen, clinical microbiologist, Turku, Finland. Appointed by the national society
• Magnus Rasmussen, ID consultant, Lund, Sweden. Elected by the AGM.

The following board members were proposed for a new 3-year term: Ole Schmeltz Søgaard (ID, Denmark), Honorary Treasurer, Lena Rós Ásmundsdóttir (CM, Iceland), General Secretary, and Asko Järvinen (ID, Finland), board Chairman 2021-2024. No other candidates were proposed by the members at the AGM. The members at the AGM supported the proposal and all three will therefore continue as board members for the period 2024-2027.

Annika Ljung (CM, Sweden) and Truls Leegaard (CM, Norway) have been renominated by national societies as their representatives on the board.
Truls Leegaard replaced Asko Järvinen as Chairman of the board.

Considerable work has been done to clean the membership registries and ensure that all registered are actual members. A renewal reminder will in the future be sent to all members. This work has accelerated the membership number. At the AGM Oslo 2024 we had 52 members with a 1-year membership. This number has increased to 123. The 10-year membership number has increased from 43 to 64. The lifelong membership number is 236, making the total number of NSCMID members 423.

NSCMID board meetings. The NSCMID board met in Oslo 31st August 2024 and 18th March 2025 in Stockholm. The focus for both meetings was on planning the coming Annual Meetings/Conferences, the SSAC-foundation and discussing regulatory matters. Some matters were decided by e-mail meetings in between the physical board meetings. NSCMID signed the publication calling ethanol to authorised as a biocidal active substance without CMR (carcinogenic, mutagenic, and reprotoxic) classification within EU. The action was led by prof. Axel Kramer on behalf of German Society of Hospital Hygiene. Erik Forsblom has been webmaster.

SSAC Foundation meeting in Stockholm. The SSAC Foundation is a legal entity under the auspices of Svenska Läkaresällskapet where NSCMID members only can apply for grants supporting research and scientific meetings. The SSAC Foundation board had a meeting for grant decisions in Stockholm on 17th March 2025. For 2025 the foundation received 10 applications. The board decided to grant 6 applications for a total of 2 609 599 SEK with a total amount of 1 200 000 SEK. Magnus Rasmussen replaced Magnús Gottfreðsson as chairman of the SSAC Foundation.

Treasurer’s summary of the financial situation. Following the decline in NSCMID’s equity in the period from 2018/19 up to the pandemic years of 2020/21, the last four years, however, the organization has had a healthy economic recovery with sizeable profits of almost 2 million Danish Kroner in 2021/22 and 2022/23. The recovery is mainly driven by surplus from the conferences in Turku in 2021 and Aalborg in 2022. Currently, the organization’s equity stands at nearly 3.3 million DKK and has been stable over the past years. This means that the organization is well situated to abide by its commitment to cover all costs in the unlikely event of a failed conference.

NSCMID Working groups:

The Working Group for High-Level Isolation Units (HLIU) held its 8th Annual Meeting in Oslo on 28th August 2024. Approximately 30 participants from Nordic HLIUs attended the professional program. Members of the working group have actively exchanged advice and experiences related to high-consequence infectious diseases via email and WhatsApp during the past year, and will have a HLIU-related session at the NSCMID 2025 conference. The group is chaired by Lasse Lönnqvist, Finland.

NordicAST was chaired by Barbara Holzknecht with the scientific secretary Kaisu Rantakokko-Jalava and the treasurer Dennis Back Holmgaard. The group had three physical meetings and one online meeting in 2024/5. The annual 2-day workshop was held in May 2025 in Malmö and was fully booked with about 180 participants. The program covered amongst others whole genome sequencing and AST, artificial intelligence in AST as well as practical issues spanning from detection of penicillin susceptibility in S. aureus to laboratory preparedness for detection and characterization of carbapenemase-producing Enterobacterales. As for last year’s workshop, young scientists and laboratory technicians had the opportunity to submit abstracts to present their work in mini oral presentations and attend the workshop for half the registration fee. Two webinars were held during the year, “S. pneumoniae and benzylpenicillin breakpoints” in December 2024 and “What is new in the breakpoint table v15.0?” in January 2025.

The Nordic paediatric infectious diseases group (NORPID) did not organize any general face-to-face meetings in 2024/2025. Instead, many of the members met unofficially at various meetings and discussed the best ways to proceed with Nordic collaborative studies. Terho Heikkinen continued as the chair of the group.

Nordic tick borne disease group members have been involved in organizing the SNÄFF conference (Swedish Research Network for Ticks and Tick-Borne Diseases) in Ystad, Sweden April 1st-3rd 2025. The conference had over 70 participants from 10 different countries. During the SNÄFF-meeting a new Nordic society, NoSTick, for research on ticks and tick-borne infections was launched. Per-Eric Lindgren was elected chairman and Anna Henningsson a board member. The working group members have also co-organised the pre-course Tick-borne diseases in the Nordic countries in conjunction with the NSCMID conference in Mariehamn, Åland August 27th-28th.

Annual meeting 2025. This year´s annual meeting in Mariehamn, Åland, Finland 28-31 August 2025 is chaired by Antti Hakanen.

Final remarks. The Chairman would like to thank everyone who have contributed to make the Society a success, first of all the Board, the Annual Meetings organizers and the Working Groups members. NSCMID can be, and in my opinion already is, an important tool for Nordic cooperation. We have so much in common and our combined efforts contribute greatly to science and improved clinical activities. To conclude, I totally support my predecessor Asko Järvinen’s hope that we all can find NSCMID a common field for friendship, shared experiences and collaboration,

Truls Leegaard, NSCMID chairman

27th August 2025