2023-05-08 08:00:08
Bern (ots)
Extensive knowledge was presented at the SNSF Corona Research Conference, which will be useful for overcoming future crises.
“In the event of a possible new pandemic in the future, we will no longer have to start from scratch, as was the case with the fight against the corona virus,” Barbara Rath summed up. The scientist was involved in the Austrian Vienna Vaccine Safety Initiative and is a member of the steering group of the National Research Program “Covid-19” (NRP 78). She spoke at the SNSF Corona Research Conference in Thun at the end of March, which was attended by over 250 researchers (see box). Their topics were the exchange of lessons learned from the pandemic and the challenges for the future.
The most important lesson is quite simple: while Covid-19 took us by surprise, the pandemic it triggered was not entirely unpredictable. At least that is the assessment of the epidemiologist Lone Simonsen, head of the Center for Pandemic Research at the Danish University of Roskilde, who has looked back on the pandemics of the last 100 years.
Wavelike development like the flu
Why did this virus from the corona virus family manage to spread in the population at all, while Sars-Cov in 2003 and Mers-Cov in 2012, two other viruses from the corona virus family, were quickly eradicated? “The Covid-19 virus was contagious two days before symptoms appeared, and some people had no symptoms at all, which facilitated the rapid explosion of cases,” said the scientist. Another complicating factor was that airborne transmission of the virus was not clearly communicated from the start.
Regulators and researchers were also surprised, as they had expected an influenza virus – the flu virus. The pandemics of the last 100 years – Spanish flu in 1918, Asian flu in 1957, Hong Kong flu in 1968 and influenza A (H1N1) in 2009 – were all caused by influenza viruses, the scientist recalled.
In many respects, however, the Covid-19 pandemic is similar to previous outbreaks. So it has also evolved in waves and will probably eventually become endemic and emerge as a seasonal virus. “However, there are still some unknowns related to Covid-19, such as the Long Covid cases, where many aspects are still unknown,” said Simonsen.
From the coronavirus to rheumatic diseases
While dealing with this time could benefit from lessons learned from previous pandemics, there were also lessons about dealing with the pandemic and the insights gained through scientific research. With the results of the National Research Program “Covid-19” (NRP 78), the findings of the special call for proposals on coronaviruses and soon also of NRP 80, a large wealth of knowledge is available in various areas: Know-how about the virus and its transmission routes, options for combating the disease and for patient management. In their almost three-year research work, the scientists have, for example, gained insights into the diagnosis and prediction of the course of Covid-19 disease using artificial intelligence – information that can also be transferred to other diseases such as rheumatic diseases. Other research has shown that reducing contact between adults and the elderly is not enough to bring an epidemic like Covid-19 under control. On the other hand, halving the contacts of the entire population, including children, is helpful.
In addition, good crisis management does not only depend on scientific findings. Another prerequisite is that the federal government and cantons are prepared and react quickly and uniformly, as several speakers at the conference in Thun emphasized. Because the next crisis may not be triggered by a corona virus. It could be caused by an as yet unknown virus that we know nothing about – or it could also be a climate or financial crisis.
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First interdisciplinary conference organized by the SNSF
At the SNSF Corona Research Conference, researchers from the special call for corona viruses opened in March 2020 and the National Research Program “Covid-19” (NRP 78) launched in April 2020 took stock of their research work. The conference also served as the starting signal for the national research program “Covid-19 in Society” (NRP 80). Its goal is to understand the social dimensions of the Covid-19 pandemic and to develop findings that are relevant for dealing with future pandemics.
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The text of this news and further information can be found on the website of the Swiss National Science Foundation.
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