Diagnosis and treatment of emerging viral diseases : how can we do better ?

Virus emergence episodes follow one another at a steady pace. The medical and scientific community responds to needs as and when they arise but finds difficult to propose a global strategy in the medium and long term. Regarding diagnosis, priority should be given to anticipating the management of re-emerging pathogens, to developing capacities of real-time molecular diagnosis, and to preserving reference expertise and reference biological materials. This effort should also include sero-epidemiological studies aiming at obtaining a more accurate mapping of the circulation of potentially re-emerging pathogens. Regarding therapeutics (with the exception of vaccines which are addressed in another presentation), the expected improvements are the advance implementation of ready-to-use protocol frames for clinical trials and that of an ambitious strategy aiming at gradually covering the taxonomic spectrum of evolutionary virus groups infecting vertebrates.