Infectious diseases: the Academy of Sciences calls for their declared major national and international causes

The Academy of Sciences claims the status of major national and international due to infectious diseases, in a report, which emphasizes the importance of research in this area.
Infectious and parasitic diseases are responsible for nearly fifteen million deaths each year worldwide, representing more than a quarter of deaths from all diseases and trauma, said during a press conference on Professor Gerard Orth, who signed with Prof. Philippe Sansonetti, a 440-page report on the control of infectious diseases.

In 90% of these deaths occur in developing countries, said the specialist stressed the need to raise to the rank of major national and international causes the fight against infectious diseases, for reasons both " humanitarian ", but also" selfish "because of globalization and increased trade.

Developed countries are not immune to these conditions: they include face specific problems of food-borne infections, antibiotic resistance and nosocomial infections, said Dr. Sansonetti, while Gerard Orth cited problems of low vaccination coverage against hepatitis B and measles which France faces.

Both experts stressed the importance of fundamental research in particular-and the day to achieve control of infectious diseases "which are still and will remain a public health problem." This implies "cooperation between basic research and industrial research-a movement that is emerging but where much remains to be done, a better coordination of national and international systems for intelligence, surveillance and alert" and the need " remove barriers between animal and human disease to encompass "at the research but also of education, said Gerard Orth.

It is important not to "over react and chasing problems, but to go to a proactive attitude," he added, stressing the difficulty of the subject against the unpredictability of the emergence of infectious diseases.

The development of new diagnostic tests, treatments and vaccines need to strengthen research in many disciplines: microbiology, cell biology, biochemistry, physiology, immunology, experimental medicine, clinical research, research on vectors and reservoirs of pathogens, social sciences, epidemiology ... continued Dr. Sansonetti.

This underlines the importance of making attractive research on infectious diseases for students who have turned in recent years rather to topics such as cancer or neuroscience, and improve the image of some important subjects such as the "vectorology" tarnished by an "old-fashioned pinning butterflies picture" and hidden with the advent of molecular biology.

Finally, the experts stressed the need not to reduce research efforts in three major diseases (AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria) and also take into account the acute respiratory infections, enteric infections, leishmaniasis, trypanosomiasis, filariasis, bilharzia and hemorrhagic fevers.