A new scientific advice. The Health Risk Surveillance and Prevention Council, the Covars, is already complete after the appointment yesterday of its 18 members. The fifteen scientists and three people from civil society will now be able to get to work alongside their chair, Professor Brigitte Autran, a professor and immunologist who has long worked on the AIDS epidemic.
If the old Scientific Council created as a result of the Covid epidemic was dedicated to the management of the epidemic, the new missions of Covars are expanded.
The decree published on July 30 defines the lines of work of the commission that will meet on Monday. It must “ensure scientific monitoring of health risks related to infectious agents that affect humans and animals, environmental and food contaminants, and climate change,” the decree establishes.
The eighth wave of Covid
Specifically, the 18 people will have to monitor potentially dangerous new diseases in France and around the world. “The idea is to monitor and anticipate risks that are not just infectious, those that may be related to pollution and global warming,” Brigitte Autran told the Daily last night.
And incidentally, “plan treatments, vaccines and patient care.”
Therefore, two epidemics will be particularly monitored this fall. The Covid-19, in the first place since the eighth wave is raging in the country and the number of cases has skyrocketed in recent days. “This new wave does not worry us,” he said while acknowledging that “it was very real,” this Friday morning on franceinfo.
Starting Monday, the committee “will address very technical aspects to try to limit the impact of this eighth wave,” said one of the council members, Yvanie Caillé, from the Renaloo kidney disease patient association in the columns. of the parisian. He wants to defend immunocompromised patients.
“How to ensure that they have better access to treatment and to the reinforced vaccination strategy? What vaccine should be recommended to them?” she asked.
The teacher, for her part, also called this Friday morning for the return of the mask in transport.
Monkeypox and dengue
Another issue that scientists should address is monkeypox. “The epidemic is declining,” said the president of the council on Thursday. 110,000 people have received a first injection of the virus vaccine, and the committee says they remain “vigilant”. Last August, he believed that it was “a virus that can be controlled. A zero monkeypox strategy is possible.”
Other epidemics that the committee will have to deal with soon, polio and dengue -whose cases have been increasing since the beginning of the year-, indicates the Government’s press release this Friday.
The committee will issue opinions, make recommendations on possible measures to prevent the spread of an epidemic and on vaccination strategies to be adopted by the government. “I asked that the maximum period between the delivery of our opinions to the public authorities and their publication be specified, in black on white,” reported Brigitte Autran with our colleagues from the World.
In addition, the professor assured not to step on the fingers of other health surveillance agencies: High Council for Public Health, Public Health France… “For me, this committee is to coordinate the health surveillance activities of the other authorities “, said. entrusted to World.
Source: BFM TV
