In a recent report, the Committee for Monitoring and Anticipation of Health Risks (COVARS) reveals the diseases that risk threatening our immune system in the next five years.
- Over the next five years, respiratory infections, originating from a new coronavirus or an influenza virus of animal origin, could occur.
- Diseases transmitted by mosquitoes, such as Zika and Chikungunya, and Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF), also threaten our health.
- The list also includes sexually or vector-transmitted diseases (AIDS, STIs, extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis, tick-borne encephalitis).
Coronavirus, bronchiolitis, flu, measles… In recent years, France has been faced with several epidemics. But what are the next health crises facing the country? This is the question that the Committee for Monitoring and Anticipation of Health Risks (COVARS) asked itself in a report. In order to respond to this, it examined the risks of major “exceptional health situations” likely to arise in the next two to five years, both in mainland France and in the overseas territories. For their study, COVARS consulted several French and international organizations and analyzed published reports in the infectious and environmental fields.
Zoonotic diseases will appear in the next five years
According to their analysis, pathologies likely to endanger the health of human beings will be linked to zoonoses, transmitted from animals to humans and vice versa. In the list of diseases, we find respiratory infections, which could come from a new coronavirus or an influenza virus of animal origin. Next, the committee discussed vector-borne diseases, including two arboviruses, Zika and Chikungunya, and Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF). Another threat to health: sexually or vector-transmitted diseases (AIDS, other STIs, extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis, tick-borne encephalitis, Rift Valley fever, rabies, gastroenteritis).
“The risks of major exceptional health situations are mainly linked to or favored by climate change. Other environmental factors in the broad sense will have an impact on health as well, or even more significant, but this impact is generally chronic and distributed more evenly over time. , is more diffuse, air pollution, well quantified and persistent despite recent progress, induces a major health risk, approximately half that linked to tobacco. can we read in the report. Data show that these environmental factors are responsible for cancers, cardiovascular, metabolic, endocrine or neurodegenerative diseases, which weaken the body in the long term.
Health crises: how to prepare?
So that the French healthcare system can better confront these health crises, COVARS recommends focusing on prevention and preparation measures and innovation. The research would also allow “better understand, synthesize and prioritize the health dangers and risks linked to environmental factors of an infectious, biological, chemical or physical nature, and psychosocial”.
