The Committee for Surveillance and Anticipation of Health Risks, or Covars, successor to the Scientific Council created to deal with Covid-19, is now complete, with 18 members, whose appointments were published this Thursday in the Official Gazette. Until then, only the president of this committee created more than a month ago, the immunologist Brigitte Autran, had been elected.
The Health Risk Monitoring and Forecasting Committee will have 18 members, including 15 scientists or health professionals (12 men and three women). They are appointed for a period of two years, renewable once.
Covars’ mission is to monitor “health risks linked to infectious agents affecting humans and animals”, “environmental and food contaminants” and “climate change”.
Members of previous Scientific Councils
Some former members of the Scientific Council will be part of it, among them the virologist Bruno Lina, the infectologist Denis Malvy or the modeler of the Institut Pasteur Simon Cauchemez.
Sexual and reproductive health specialist Annabel Desgrées du Loû is also on your side member of the National Ethics Committee.
The Covars will also include several former members of the Vaccine Strategy Guidance Council (COSV). Thus we find Mélanie Heard, head of the health division of the Terra Nova think tank, and Xavier de Lamballerie, a specialist in medical virology at Assistance Publique – Hôpitaux de Marseille.
citizen representatives
After having also been part of the COSV, the engineer in applied mathematics Yvanie Caillé is also present in this committee, as a representative of the patients. She is the founder of the Renaloo patient association.
Céline Offerlé, head of the PACA branch of the French association for the fight against HIV Aides, will also be a patient representative. Véronique Loyer, volunteer director of the Claude Pompidou Foundation, will be the citizen representative.
healthcare professionals
Among the new nominees, we find the deputy head of the emergency department at Nice University Hospital, Julie Contenti, as well as the general practitioner, Olivier Saint-Lary. Fabrice Carrat is he “public health specialist in biostatistics, professor at the Faculty of Medicine of the Sorbonne University and hospital doctor at the Saint-Antoine Hospital”, explains the site of the Sorbonne University.
Rémy Slama is an environmental epidemiologist and director of research at Inserm. His work has focused, among other things, on “the influence of environmental pollutants (air pollutants, endocrine disruptors, exposome) on reproduction and child health,” details the Public Health Research Institute.
We also found the infectologist Xavier Lescure, from the Bichat hospital (Paris).
Among these new members is also Roger Le Grand, founder of theInfectious disease models for innovative therapies. “From monkeys to humans, Roger Le Grand tracks infections,” he wrote. The world last May.
Biodiversity specialists
Patrick Giraudoux is a specialist in “wildlife ecology and ecosystem health”.
And Thierry Lefrançois is “director of the biological systems department of CIRAD (agronomic research agency for development), whose research units work on animal health, plant health and biodiversity,” explains CIRAD.
Also on this committee is Didier Fontenille, director of research at the IRD (Research Institute for Development), specialist in biology and entomology (the study of insects).
“Faced with these new challenges, it is essential to have a committee made up of different scientific knowledge to assess the risks in their entirety, and also their physical, psychological and social consequences,” stressed the Ministers of Health, François Braun and Research Sylvie. Retailleau in a press release.
• The complete list of members:
- Fabrice Carrat, public health specialist in biostatistics
- Simon Cauchemez, modeller at the Institut Pasteur
- Julie Contenti, deputy director of emergencies at Nice University Hospital
- Xavier de Lamballerie, doctor specializing in virology at the APHM
- Annabel Desgrées du Loû, specialist in sexual and reproductive health
- Didier Fontenille, specialist in biology and entomology at the IRD
- Patrick Giraudoux, wildlife ecology and ecosystem health specialist
- Mélanie Heard, head of the health department at the Terra Nova think tank
- Thierry Lefrançois, Director of the Department of Biological Systems at CIRAD
- Roger Le Grand, founder of theInfectious Disease Models for Innovative Therapies
- Xavier Lescure, infectious disease specialist at the Bichat hospital
- Bruno Lina, virologist
- Denis Malvy, infectologist
- Olivier Saint-Lary, general practitioner
- Rémy Slama, environmental epidemiologist at Inserm
- Yvanie Caillé, engineer in applied mathematics
- Céline Offerlé, patient representative
- Véronique Loyer, citizen representative
Source: BFM TV
