“It is almost certain that there will be a wave in the fall”, estimates Brigitte Autran, immunologist appointed president of the heir to the Scientific Council

Immunologist Brigitte Autran will chair the “committee for monitoring and anticipating health risks”successor to the Scientific Council created in the spring of 2020 to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic, announced Wednesday August 17 a decree in the Official Journal. “Brigitte Autran is appointed chair of the committee for monitoring and anticipating health risks”is it notified in the OJ.

This committee, created this summer, succeeds, with a broader aim, the Scientific Council created in 2020 to guide the action of the French government in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic. This Council, which was chaired by Professor Jean-François Delfraissy, indeed ceased to exist with the lifting of the state of health emergency at the end of July.

His successor will be responsible for keeping a watch on all health risks, with particular attention to the consequences of global warming as well as the interactions between animals and humans. This global vision is increasingly defended by a number of public health specialists.

“Diseases can be transmitted from animals to humans, or vice versa, or even boomerang back from one to another,” detailed Brigitte Autran in an interview given to the Parisian (access reserved for subscribers) on the occasion of his appointment. The immunologist also believes that he “is almost certain that there will be a wave [de Covid-19] in autumn” and warns: “Today, you have to go to live with it.”

With regard to monkeypox, she felt that it was necessary “intensify the campaign and facilitate access to vaccines”. For her, “a ‘zero Monkeypox’ strategy is possible, unlike that of zero Covid”. The scientist, whose research has mainly concerned AIDS, intends to compose the team of this committee, which must include around fifteen scientists, by the start of the school year.