the ministry sets up a monitoring committee to anticipate health risks

Alerting the government in the event of new epidemic risks is the mission of the new watch committee for anticipating health risks. Established on the evening of Sunday July 31 in the Official Journal, the committee will be made up of 19 members, including 17 scientists and 2 patient and citizen representatives. Their identity should be known in the coming days, according to the Minister of Health. “I am going to set up a roughly equivalent Scientific Council, but something that will be independent, transparent in its opinions and which will be able to be extremely responsive. A small commando team of very high-level scientists”declared François Braun.

The members of the committee will be appointed for two years and their mandate will be renewable only once. Unlike the Scientific Council created to monitor the evolution of Covid-19, this new committee will be responsible for general monitoring of health risks. According to Jean-François Delfraissy, president of the Scientific Council, the committee will allow a broader approach “with specialists in human, animal and environmental health”. Another difference is that all committee opinions will now be made public. The committee must also be permanent. The scientific council was planned only in the context of the state of health emergency, it ends on Sunday evening.