Macron announces the creation of a new agency specializing in infectious diseases

To be ready for the arrival of a potential epidemic in the years to come, France will establish a new national research agency on infectious and emerging diseases. Emmanuel Macron is expected to announce this Friday, as the country has been fighting the coronavirus epidemic for more than nine months.

The president will present “his vision of the transformation in health research and innovation for the coming years”, during a speech at 12:30 at the Imagine institute, inside the Necker hospital in Paris, alongside the minister of research, Frédérique Vidal. As such, it will announce the establishment of this new agency to “improve research, understand how these diseases emerge, know how to cure them and be present in the event of a new health crisis,” the Ministry of Education said. Superior and research.

Make France a leader in digital health

This agency, expected to be launched in January 2021, will bring together the National Agency for Research on AIDS and Viral Hepatitis (ANRS) and the REACting consortium, which coordinates research on health crises related to emerging infectious diseases (chikungunya virus, Ebola. .. and Covid-19).

Emmanuel Macron will also announce the launch of “Paris Campus Santé”, a new venue intended to structure a digital healthcare sector, and “make France a world leader” in this field. Eventually it would be located on the site of the former military hospital of Val-de-Grâce in Paris and will bring together various public facilities such as Inserm, CNRS, AP-HP, the digital agency. Ministry of Health, as well as the Health Data Hub, a French health data platform that uses artificial intelligence.

Before their installation in Val-de-Grâce, these structures will be grouped in a first temporary location, in Paris, starting next year. Budget for this new location: 400 million euros, from private and public funds.