The BMC Infectious Illnesses Affiliate Editor Dr. Ziad El-Khatib shares is impressions and take residence message from the hybrid European Scientific Convention on Utilized Infectious Illness Epidemiology (ESCAIDE) that came about just lately in Stockholm. The content material of this weblog doesn’t mirror the opinion of any of the establishments he’s affiliated with, however quite his private impressions solely.
I attended throughout 24-26 November 2022 to the European Scientific Convention on Utilized Infectious Illness Epidemiology (ESCAIDE), organized and hosted by the European Centre for Illness Prevention and Management (ECDC) in Stockholm throughout 24 – 26 November 2022. The convention was carried out in a hybrid mode, the place a complete of 500 and a couple of,400 individuals attended in-person and on-line, respectively.
Right here I share my impressions from the convention:
The primary necessary subject was about Ethics: Alena Buyx, president of the German Ethics Council mentioned about moral boundaries and reminded us of the significance of retaining ethics in thoughts for future pandemics. She referenced the well-known Ethicist Ross Upshur who mentioned “The lesson we have now discovered is that we don’t prefer to study classes” as he described we had discovered so much from the earlier outbreaks and pandemics. Additionally, we have to focus extra on vulnerability and resilience (for instance to guard aged individuals early on). We have to be extra tolerant of uncertainties: for epidemiologists, we cope with dangers in several specialties, however the public doesn’t realize it; due to this fact we have to hold a way of togetherness. Sooner or later, we have to embody ethics within the technique of policymaking, and we have to have ethically accountable instruments of preparedness whereas retaining the choice for civil society to be concerned within the response to pandemics, which was already proven in a examine by Driesen et al. in Germany.
The subject of the COVID-19 pandemic has difficult the responses to an already advanced scenario of the intersection between local weather, conflicts and socioeconomic dangers, together with rising meals insecurity and displacement. Subsequently the variety of refugees is growing and the funding to assist them is lowering. There’s an rising inequity in funding channeling to the worldwide refugee scenario. This shall be a public well being concern within the close to future.
The subject of communication took a big a part of the convention. The COVID19 pandemic moved very quick and due to this fact we have to make investments extra in communication with the general public. The web and social media made us notice that the so-called geographical borders are simply political or “human-made” and the world has develop into as a single nation. Additionally, we have to focus extra on how we talk scientific messages to the general public. How can we be sure we’re proactive in danger communication?, by the way this subject was additionally reported by a global examine by Cristea et al.
The subject of “One Well being” was of significance as nicely, with emphasis on the ability of working collectively as totally different disciplines. This shall be a key ingredient for the preparedness for the second pandemic and coping with the implications of local weather change.
Lastly, COVID19 has pushed totally different scientific strategies to scale their work and to be progressive on work at a a lot sooner tempo. For instance, the Polymerase Chain Response (PCR) testing and genome sequencing has elevated by a number of folds post-COVID19.
Lastly, I used to be fortunate to interview Dr. Andrea Ammon, the director of ECDC who shared her take-home message from ESCAIDE to the world:
All shows can be found on-line for the general public at https://www.escaide.eu/en/escaide-programme-2022
