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Faced with the resurgence of the MPOX epidemic, which prompted the WHO to declare a public health emergency of international concern, the Pasteur Institute said on Monday that it was ready to “test and vaccinate patients at the request of the French authorities”.
Pasteur Institute ready to test and vaccinate
“Since this weekend, after activation by the Directorate General of Health (DGS), the emergency biological intervention unit (CIBU) of the Pasteur Institute has been analyzing, at the request of the health authorities, suspect samples.“, the institute said in a statement.
The Pasteur Institute medical center, specialized in travel medicine, which had treated patients with COPD during the previous epidemic in 2022, “has triggered its internal protocol allowing it to test patients presenting symptoms suggestive of MPOX (…) under optimal safety conditions“.
It also stands “available to health authorities to vaccinate within its walls all people from the populations targeted by the health recommendations currently being reassessed” he assured.
“This is a serious health situation“, commented Yasmine Belkaid, Director General of the Pasteur Institute, quoted in the press release.Today we are ready to test and vaccinate patients at the request of the authorities” she added.
Mpox: its arrival in Europe is worrying
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal announced on Friday that the French health system was being placed on “maximum alert” after an initial meeting with the ministers responsible for the issue.
A new follow-up meeting was to be held at Matignon on Monday early afternoon.
In an interview with The Sunday Tribunethe resigning Minister Delegate for Health Frédéric Valletoux said he expected “sporadic cases” of the new variant of mpox “to appear, and probably soon” in France.
On Thursday, Sweden announced that it had registered a case of clade 1b subtype, the same strain that has appeared in the Democratic Republic of Congo since September 2023, more deadly and virulent than clade 2, endemic in West Africa. A case was also announced in Asia, in Pakistan.
The Pasteur Institute, a research player
In addition, the Pasteur Institute has decided to intensify the research it has already been conducting for several years on Mpox.
This research aims to identify the animal reservoirs of the virus, its transmission mechanisms from animals to humans and between humans, as well as the resulting epidemic dynamics; to strengthen our diagnostic capabilities using tests that can be deployed in the field and our knowledge of the virus subtypes through sequencing; to improve in the longer term treatments and vaccines against Mpox and its different strains.
For Yasmine Belkaid, Director General of the Pasteur Institute, “This new episode reminds us that the epidemic risk is unfortunately part of our lives and that it must be the subject of a global, sustained and lasting mobilization if we want to stem it. Especially since the increasing upheavals of ecosystems and the intensification of trade on an international scale make this risk more significant every day. To act, we must support scientific research on infectious diseases (virology, immunology, vaccinology, but also epidemiology, ecology, anthropology) and intervene as close as possible to epidemic outbreaks, often in the South, by allowing populations and local and regional authorities to prevent and manage this risk themselves and in a sovereign manner”.