Plenary Session: Living in a World with Pandemics

PL2.1- Friday, July 15, 9:45 – 11:00 CEST, Stadsgehoorzaal, Main Stage

We have been living in a world with the COVID-19 pandemic for the last two years. Naturally, this sudden global event has brought to the forefront many new questions about our preparedness for future pandemics. Yes, vaccines were rapidly developed this time, but it’s essential to re-examine how we can prevent and address the challenges with which we will face in the coming years and decades. 

During ESOF2022, this panel will discuss the effects the pandemic had on a variety of subjects, including the failings in the multilateral health system during the pandemic, global inequalities that have emerged with regards to the vaccination, the long-term cost of the pandemic on other health outcomes such as cancer care, the promise and risks of mRNA vaccines, and future pandemic preparedness in general for infectious diseases like monkeypox.   

5 Panel Experts   

Attendees to this session will gain a unique insight into pandemics and how society can prepare for them from a distinguished set of panel members who include:  

• Jaap van Dissel, Director of the RIVM Centre of Infectious Disease Control and professor of Internal Medicine at Leiden University Medical Center 
• Mark van Ranst, a public health doctor in Belgium and a professor of Virology at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and Raga Institute for Medical Research.  

Both were important advisors of their governments during the COVID-19 pandemic.  

Other panel members include:  

• Prof. Nicole Grobert, chief scientific advisor at the European Commission Dg Research and Innovation;  
• Prof. Petter Brodin, a Garfield West Chair and professor of pediatric immunology at Imperial College London;  
• Prof. Salim S. Abdool Karim, a clinical infectious diseases epidemiologist and a CAPRISA professor for Global Health in the Department of Epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University.  

Together they will explore the lessons learned from this pandemic and how these issues can be tackled successfully on a local and global scale.  

Want to join this debate? 

Register now to be part of the exploring debate that will help shaping the global health policies of tomorrow.