Globalization and climate change are the passport to new epidemic diseases worldwide
How do climate change and globalization affect the appearance of emerging viruses? What pathogens with viral origins could cause new epidemic outbreaks? Are viruses the future great biotechnological tools in biomedicine? Nowadays there are around two-hundred species of viruses that are pathogens for humans and each year, new viral agents that can affect human beings are found.
From June 9 to 12, around four hundred experts from around the world will meet in Barcelona to talk about the leading research studies on the field of viruses in the frame of the 15th Conference of Virology of the Spanish Society for Virology (SEV), a scientific entity presided by Professor Albert Bosch, from the Department of Genetics, Microbiology and Statistics of the Faculty of Biology of the UB.
How do climate change and globalization affect the appearance of emerging viruses? What pathogens with viral origins could cause new epidemic outbreaks? Are viruses the future great biotechnological tools in biomedicine? Nowadays there are around two-hundred species of viruses that are pathogens for humans and each year, new viral agents that can affect human beings are found.
From June 9 to 12, around four hundred experts from around the world will meet in Barcelona to talk about the leading research studies on the field of viruses in the frame of the 15th Conference of Virology of the Spanish Society for Virology (SEV), a scientific entity presided by Professor Albert Bosch, from the Department of Genetics, Microbiology and Statistics of the Faculty of Biology of the UB.
This meeting will be held in Auditori Axa and is organized by a scientific committee led by Joaquim Segalés (IRTA-CReSA), and counts on the participation of experts from the UB, Hospital Clínic, ISGlobal, the Center for Molecular Biology “Severo Ochoa” (CBM-CSIC-UAM), Institut Pasteur (France), Institute Peter Doherty (Australia), among other institutions. The opening conference, to be held on June 9 at 6 p.m., will be given by Robert Gallo, prestigious international expert in the field of human retroviruses, and director of the Institute of Human Virology (University of Maryland, United States).
Globalization, climate change and emerging viruses
Demographic growth, urbanization, globalization in traveling, commerce and the climate change are factors that promote the spread of vectors -insects, etc.- that transmit infectious diseases. The chances of epidemic outbreaks are higher now, “and now, more than ever, we have to be reactive to give quick responses to epidemic outbreaks”, states Marion Koopmans, head of the Department of Viroscience in the Medical Erasmus Center in Rotterdam (Netherlands) and distinguished expert on the research on zoonotic viral diseases and emerging viruses.
“Our objective is to be ready to detect emerging infectious diseases as soon as possible and stop their impact”, says Koopmans, on the re-appearance of Ebola in Western Africa, which strengthened prospective research.
All health professionals have joined efforts to promote the concept of One Health on human, animal and plant health worldwide. According to Professor Albert Bosch (UB), “we need more dialogue and we have to share epidemiologic information among medical professionals, vets, virologists and biologists to detect and prevent zoonotic outbreaks and food health problems”.
Developing global coordination strategies among all involved agents is also essential to guarantee public health. “In this context, the Spanish Society for Virology (SEV) aims to work to promote research on virology, make contacts in the international field and offer advice when there is an episode caused by the virus, as well as applying control strategies, for example, like the episode of Ebola cases in Spain in 2014”, says Professor Bosch, current president of SEV.
A response to guarantee public health
This scientific milestone will coincide with the 11th International Meeting of the Global Virus Network, the only world institution formed by expert scientists on all areas of virology presided by the expert Christian Bréchot, from the University of South Florida (United States). “Group work in GVN is essential to be ready and give responses to emerging and non-identified viruses that can threaten public health. Therefore, we seek solutions for the problems caused by the viruses in coordination with national and international institutions. As part of the conference, there will be a special emphasis on the removal and control of emerging and re-emerging viruses in a climate change context”.
In the field of research on the Human Immunodeficency Virus (HIV), the therapeutic vaccine, reactivators of viral latency and neutralizer antibodies are the core of the therapeutic strategies to be analyzed by Bonaventura Clotet, president of Lluita contra la Sida Foundation, director of the IrsiCaixa AIDS Research Institute and head of the Service of Infectious Diseases in University Hospital Germans Trias. Regarding the fight against this illness, which affects about 37 million people worldwide, poverty is still the main restricting factor in the poorest areas of the planet.