“What I can vaccinate, I vaccinate”

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Mrs Lévy, on June 18, we will vote for the third time on the Covid-19 law. Why is this still necessary? The Bundesrat finally declared that the pandemic was over.
Anne Levy: In Switzerland, we have long since lifted all restrictions and the World Health Organization (WHO) has now declared that the international health emergency and with it the pandemic is over. Good news! But the virus is still there.

That means?
It’s important to stay prepared if another wave arrives in winter, especially for the most vulnerable. Firstly, with the Covid-19 Act we have a legal basis so that you can be well protected at work – for example with working from home. Second, the law ensures that we can quickly get innovative drugs that help with new viral mutations. And third, if other countries require a travel certificate again, the law will give us the option to issue one.

Honestly, how dramatic would a no be? It’s just a six month extension.
It just doesn’t make sense for useful tools to be phased out at the end of December, in the middle of the Covid season.

Well, in an emergency there would still be an emergency law. The Bundesrat does not give the impression that it would appeal to this.
In the current situation you cannot invoke emergency law! After three years of experience with Corona, we know how to prepare. Hence the extension of the law. We learned a lot.

What have we learned?
We have taken a step forward in digitization.

So the fax has been abolished in the BAG?
Not yet, because we are obliged to accept reports in any form. In the future, however, we want everything to go digital. Switzerland still has to improve there. Due to the pandemic, the FOPH has already taken a lot off your hands. For example, the Covid dashboard. The reports about Covid infections, hospital admissions and vaccinations are automatically sent to us and are then made accessible to the public in a clear manner. This is a good early warning system and that’s why we want to expand it.

How?
Our goal is that we now extend the reporting systems we introduced with Covid to all other notifiable diseases. This means that a doctor or a laboratory makes a one-off report and it is then available to the health authorities, hospitals, doctors and – of course anonymously – to research and the public.

And that works?
It’s complicated. But in the fall, just in time for the start of the flu and RSV season, the dashboard for these two viruses will be ready. Last winter, many small children contracted RSV and had to be hospitalized. A better early warning system will help the population, doctors and hospitals to prepare. Next spring we will expand the dashboard with information about tick diseases.

So by the autumn, every GP will have ICT set up in such a way that he can report a flu case with two mouse clicks?
It is not that simple, because general practitioners themselves are responsible for digitizing their practices. Not everything is standardized yet.

But that is impossible!
We are working with cantons, doctors, laboratories and hospitals to digitize these processes. I have every confidence that this will work.

At the beginning of the pandemic, the simplest things were missing: masks, disinfectants, test tubes. Are we better prepared now?
Everyone is drawing the necessary lessons from the pandemic, and the Covid law in particular is about prevention. The Federal Office for National Economic Supply is responsible for compulsory stocks – for example, control is being improved. And with our individual behavior, we can all contribute to preventing the spread of viruses.

You mean the personal delivery of masks and sanitizers?
Hand hygiene is never wrong, and a medicine cabinet in the house also belongs.

Experts say the next pandemic is coming. But you don’t know when and which pathogen. What do you expect?
I still miss the crystal ball. In addition to the known pathogens with pandemic potential such as flu and Covid, there may be others we don’t know about yet. But multi-resistant germs are of great concern to me at the moment. They ensure that antibiotics sometimes no longer work, for example in the case of blood poisoning. If a particularly aggressive germ spreads worldwide, we have a huge problem.

What is the federal government doing about it?
The current program is based on various measures in the areas of people, animals and the environment. In the human field, it is important to reduce the use of antibiotics. Misuse exacerbates the problem. You should only take antibiotics when you need them – ie if you have a bacterial infection and not a cold – and only take exactly as much as prescribed. The rest belongs in the pharmacy and not in the trash. We are also improving early detection: we want to extend wastewater monitoring, which already gives us information about Covid viruses, to flu and antibiotic resistance.

Corona does not cause problems for most people at the moment: the virus is circulating, but the immunity of the population seems so high that there are hardly any diseases. How long will this take?
Corona will continue to circulate, just like flu or RSV. All of these are not harmless for particularly vulnerable people. Infection can be very dangerous for the elderly or people with cancer. Vaccination is therefore still recommended.

In the fall, many people get vaccinated against the flu. Do you assume that there will be a Covid vaccination every year now?
I can take that as an offer. For whom there will be an explicit recommendation is another question. Vaccination has proven effective in preventing serious illness and has been crucial in managing the pandemic.

Will you be vaccinated against Covid in the fall?
I’ll wait for the advice of the experts and then decide. In principle, a vaccination always makes sense if it entails less risk than a disease – that is the case with me. I also hate being sick. So what I can vaccinate, I vaccinate.

Source:Blick