This name could well become known to the general public. The new Health risk monitoring and anticipation committee (Covars), a body presented as the successor to the Scientific Council, was formally installed on Thursday, headed by Brigitte Autran.
This immunologist is particularly known for her work on the AIDS virus. She has thus worked on cellular immunity against HIV, on the immunological benefits of antiretroviral treatments and on therapeutic vaccines against HIV. Therapeutic vaccines do not protect against infection, but they help infected people fight the disease by stimulating their immune systems.
Brigitte Autran is Emeritus Professor of Immunology at the Sorbonne Medical School and headed the Department of Immunology at the Pitié-Salpétrière University Hospitals in Paris.
The doctor is not on your first committee. She co-founded and coordinated, from 2012 to 2019, the Corevac network, a consortium dedicated to vaccine research, and was a member of the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Advisory Committee for Vaccine Safety. Brigitte Autran was also part of the Vaccine Technical Committee of the Ministry of Health.
“Be one step ahead”
With the Health Risk Surveillance and Anticipation Committee, “the idea is to be one step ahead”, which happens, for example, “through the immediate constitution of a workgroup of scientific experience and the implementation of rapid recommendations”, explained Brigitte Autran to the Parisian in August.
“Although great efforts have been made during Covid, we are aware of the French bureaucratic procedures that are penalizing the investigation,” added the doctor, promising to “try to help remove these dikes.”
The immunologist wants his committee to develop a so-called “global health” approach. This concept considers that human health is closely related to that of animals, plants and also with that of the rest of the world. Therefore, “environmental and food contaminants” and global warming will be fully taken into account in Covars’ approach, the Health Ministry said in a press release on Thursday.
“Diseases can be transmitted from animals to humans” and “we have known this for a long time but without fully measuring it”, explained Brigitte Autran in the Parisian.
“Today public policies must take this fact into account,” he said.
18 members of Covars, appointed for two years
In addition to Brigitte Autran, Covars has 18 members, including 15 scientists or health professionals (12 men and three women). They are appointed for a period of two years, renewable once.
Some alumni of the scientific council They are part of it, among them the virologist Bruno Lina, the infectologist Denis Malvy or the modeler of the Institut Pasteur Simon Cauchemez.
The three women are also the three members who are not scientists or health professionals. Yvanie Caillé, an engineer in applied mathematics and founder of the Renaloo kidney disease patient association, and Céline Offerlé, head of the PACA branch of the French association for the fight against HIV Aides, will represent the patients. Véronique Loyer, director of volunteering at the Claude Pompidou Foundation, which helps the elderly, those with chronic illnesses or those with disabilities, will be the citizen representative.
The scientific council was established in March 2020 and is responsible for giving its opinion on the state of the pandemic and the measures to be taken. This group of thirty experts under the direction of immunologist Jean-François Delfraissy was replaced by Covars on July 31.
Source: BFM TV
