Dr Magda Campins received the ACRA 2021 award for the best professional career, with unanimous recognition by the jury for her work in the fight against COVID-19. Until recently, Campins was the Head of the Vall d'Hebron University Hospital Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology Department, the centre which has treated the highest number of patients with COVID-19 during the pandemic. She is currently a member of the Vall d'Hebron Research Institute Epidemiology and Public Health Research Group. ACRA, the Catalan Association of Healthcare Resources, accounts for 70% of the healthcare resources (care homes, day centres, home help service, social health centres, sheltered housing entities and telephone support, etc.) for the elderly in Catalonia.

The cooperation of Dr Magda Campins with ACRA during the pandemic has been decisive in increasing knowledge about the virus and the illness within an area that cares for the one of the most fragile and vulnerable groups in our society. Of particular note in this regard is the research project ‘Natural history of the COVID-19 disease in an elderly care home setting in Catalonia. An observational study based on aggregate data’, a pioneering research study coordinated by Dr Benito Almirante, a specialist in Infections Diseases at Vall d'Hebron University Hospital and head of the Vall d'Hebron Research Institute Infectious Diseases Research Group with the active participation of ACRA, which has contributed by donating scientific evidence concerning the impact of COVID-19 on care homes for the elderly. He has also carried out communicative actions aimed at all the associated and the sector by disseminating the importance of vaccination to fight the virus and as a means to protect the whole population.

Dr Campins will receive the Award for the best professional career from the Minister for Social Rights, Violant Cervera, and the chairperson of ACRA Cinta Pascual, at an event that will take place on Thursday, 18 November at the CosmoCaixa Auditorium in Barcelona.