They are all there. The Health Risk Monitoring and Anticipation Committee (Covars), successor to the Scientific Council created to deal with Covid-19, is now complete, with 18 members, whose appointments are published Thursday, September 29 in the Official Journal.
This committee, created this summer, succeeds, with a broader aim, the Scientific Council created in 2020 and chaired by Professor Jean-François Delfraissy, which ceased to exist with the lifting of the state of health emergency at the end of July. . Its mission is to monitor “the health risks associated with infectious agents affecting humans and animals”them “environmental and food pollutants” and the “climate change”. The Covars, whose opinions will be made public, is responsible for making recommendations in the face of a health threat or crisis.
The committee for monitoring and anticipating health risks will have 18 members, including 15 scientists or health professionals – 12 men and 3 women. –, according to a decree published in the Official Journal, a few hours before its official installation by the Ministers of Health François Braun and Research Sylvie Retailleau. They are appointed for a period of two years, renewable once.
Until then, only the president of this committee created more than a month ago, the immunologist Brigitte Autran, had been chosen. Some former members of the scientific council will also be part of it, including the virologist Bruno Lina, the infectiologist Denis Malvy, the modeler at the Institut Pasteur Simon Cauchemez, the veterinarian Thierry Lefrançois. The Covars will also include a former member of the Vaccine Strategy Orientation Council (COSV) – also dissolved –Mélanie Heard, head of the health department of the Terra Nova think tank.
Among the newcomers, there is a specialist in wildlife ecology and ecosystem health, Patrick Giraudoux, a deputy head of emergencies at the Nice University Hospital, Julie Contenti, a general practitioner, Olivier Saint-Lary, and a specialist sexual and reproductive health, Annabel Desgrées du Loû, also a member of the National Ethics Committee. To these specialists are added two patient representatives, Yvanie Caillé, founder of the Renaloo association (and former member of the COSV), and Cécile Offerlé, member of Aides, as well as a citizen representative, Véronique Loyer, volunteer director at the Claude Pompidou Foundation.