Abstract
Prof. Arnaud Fontanet has been invited by the Collège de France Assembly to hold the Santé Publique chair for a year, a new chair created in partnership with the national agency Santé Publique France. He is one of the most renowned specialists in the epidemiology of emerging diseases. A graduate of Université Paris V and Harvard, he has pursued an eclectic career, moving nimbly from the field to academic research centers. Head of the Emerging Diseases Epidemiology Unit at the Institut Pasteur, where he also heads the Center for Global Health, his main research themes are viral hepatitis and emerging viruses, which has led him to pilot numerous projects: on AIDS in Ethiopia, viral hepatitis in Egypt, Zika virus-related microcephaliasis on all continents, acute encephalitis in children in North Vietnam, the SARS and MERS epidemics, etc.
In his lectures at the Collège de France, Prof. Arnaud Fontanet will show that epidemiology, through its history and the challenges it faces, remains a demanding discipline capable of evolving to refine our understanding of the causes of disease, particularly new pandemics whose rate of emergence is estimated at five years. Based on his research, he will attempt to answer a few questions. What are the levels of proof and causality in epidemiology? Should we still be afraid of pandemics? What concrete contributions does this discipline make to human health? He will then devote several sessions to cases that have occupied his career and in which he is one of the leading specialists: hepatitis C in Egypt ; the Zika virus and its vector Aedes aegypti ; and SARS and MERS from a global health perspective.
