A rupture… in continuity.
The composition of the new “committee for monitoring and anticipating health risks” (Covars), which replaced the scientific council on August 1, was made public this Thursday by a decree published in the official journal.
It joins, in part, that of the bodies that existed in the past.
Until now, only the name of its president, the immunologist Brigitte Autran, was known.
A total of 18 people were chosen, including 15 leading scientists or health professionals.
As the Minister of Health François Braun had indicated, several former members of the scientific council retain their seats within the Covars.
This is the case of the modeler at the Institut Pasteur Simon Cauchemez, the virologist Bruno Lina, the infectiologist Denis Malvy or even the veterinarian Thierry Lefrançois.
Mélanie Heard, director of the health division of Terra Nova, was for her part a member of the Orientation Council for the Vaccine Strategy (COSV), chaired by Alain Fischer and who has also disappeared.
Read also“The Covid epidemic is not behind us”, warns Brigitte Autran, the president of the new scientific committee
Among the new faces, we can notably cite Patrick Giraudoux, professor emeritus of ecology at the University of Franche-Comté.
He specializes in “wildlife ecology and ecosystem health”.
A profile that is all the more interesting since many scientists insist on the “One Health” concept, which consists of “thinking about health at the interface between that of animals, humans and their environment, at the local national level. and global", defines Inrae.
Two patient representatives, one citizen representative
Julie Contenti, deputy head of the Emergency Department at the Nice University Hospital, also joined Covars.
Last July, she was one of the many doctors to have alerted to the situation of the hospital on the eve of the summer holidays.
"We are in an extremely critical situation, we do not see how we can get out of it," she testified to France Info.
The general practitioner Olivier Saint-Lary, also a teacher in general medicine at the UFR Simone Veil - Health, was also chosen.
In addition to these 15 professionals, Covars also has two patient representatives.
Yvanie Caillé, founder of the Renaloo association, already belonged to the COSV.
As for Cécile Offerlé, she was cited in 2013 by La Marseillaise as "coordinator of the regional center for information and prevention of AIDS" in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur.
Finally, Véronique Loyer, director of the Volunteer service at the Claude Pompidou Foundation, completes this composition as a representative of the citizens.
These 18 members will be officially presented this Thursday morning by François Braun and by the Minister of Higher Education and Research, Sylvie Retailleau, when an 8th wave of Covid-19 began in early September.
Their mission will be in particular "to ensure scientific monitoring of the health risks linked to infectious agents affecting humans and animals, to environmental and food pollutants, and to climate change", to "model the data collected and to establish projections", or even "to issue recommendations when a projection reveals a health risk".
All their opinions will be made public.
