Ana Cespedes to anti-vaxxers: “I would advise them to educate themselves, open their minds” | Leader in Social Information
Spain’s Ana Cespedes, chief operating officer of IAVI, a non-profit research organization that develops vaccines and antibodies against HIV, tuberculosis and emerging infectious diseases, calls on anti-vaxxers to “educate yourself, open your brain and try.” look at the data, the numbers,” she is convinced that, as during the pandemic, the results of her reign “speak for themselves.”
This was confirmed in an interview with Servimedia, in which he emphasized that during the pandemic, “if you look at the graphs of the evolution of Covid, when the first vaccine is approved, the number of deaths decreases.”
“And that we are in a situation where Covid is still here, like other respiratory viruses, and we have to continue to worry, but we have the tools to control it,” he added, insisting that “the data speaks for itself.” for myself”. “
Regarding the “lessons learned” during the crisis, he admitted that he wants to “think that we have learned a little”, taking into account that, in particular, “there are things that need to be learned and that are very important”, such as “the importance of health,” taking into account that “the definition of health is not the absence of disease.”
“It is a state of physical, mental and social well-being; To achieve this, social well-being, which includes other countries, we need one thing that we forget and which Covid has reminded us of, but which we must remind ourselves again every day: we need to prevent, and prevention is vaccines, and they are also healthy lifestyle habits,” he added.
In a similar vein, he pointed out that countries devote most of their health resources to “treating diseases, emerging diseases, whether infectious or diseases such as mental illness,” while, in his opinion, “that’s what we we have.” we need to prevent this, gain years of health.”
HEALTH BUILDS, CARES, CULTIVATES
In this context, he insisted that Covid-19 “has made us aware of the importance of health, but we forget that health is something that is built, cared for and cultivated.”
Asked about the possibility of a new pandemic like the one caused by the Covid-19 outbreak, she suggested that “there could be a new Covid”, and regarding so-called emerging infectious diseases, she noted that in Africa hospitals and universities are conducting research “ We are constantly studying viruses, bacteria, new pathogens,” which, he says, “are constantly evolving.”
“What is very urgent, and the World Health Organization has taken an important step in the field of covid, is to create a global observatory where you can somehow monitor what is happening very quickly and concentrate global resources on control. as much as possible and prevent it if it starts to spread further,” he said.
At this point, he stated that several global observatories and coalitions had been created during the crisis to “prevent and detect” future pandemics, recognizing “the importance of what to watch because we are mixing the animal world and the human world.” »
“This means that viruses and bacteria that are in animals are transmitted to people and begin to cause new diseases,” he said, emphasizing the importance of “collaboration”, “which we do not pay attention to when identifying an outbreak.” This country is a poor country that has this problem because it could be everyone’s problem,” he warned, calling for “joining forces and working together” because, in his opinion, “this is the key to infectious diseases.”
THE INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION
In this sense, he recalled when at the beginning of the pandemic, “we looked at China, and on the US side they looked at Italy and Spain as if to say: “I’m not happy with this.” “The pandemic may happen again, but we have learned a lot, we have realized that not only vaccines are needed, simple things like masks can help in a very important way in the fight against infectious diseases,” he added.
However, he insisted that “we need international cooperation, unlike in the case of non-communicable diseases, where you can only worry about your own country, even if it is not the most practical.”
“In the case of Covid, many things came together, one of them is that it was a virus that was transmitted very quickly through the respiratory tract, and we had no preparation mechanisms, and the other is that it happened in China and how “In this way, for a long time.” Time passed from the moment the event occurred until it became known and before it began to act,” he lamented.
Noting that there is “broad international cooperation with Africa and also with South America, although perhaps less with India, which are the focal countries”, he said he “believes” that “we will not see” another pandemic, although he warned that “we have pandemics of non-communicable diseases such as mental illness, and we as a society have the resources to prevent them.”