Epidemiologist Fernando Simón warns of West Nile Virus: 'It is not a problem exclusive to Andalucía'

The national coordinator of Spain's centre for alerts and health emergencies (CCAES), Fernando Simón, has urged institutions and the public to change their perception of the West Nile Virus as a problem of local, regional or national dimension and frame it in a higher geographical dimension.

"This is not only a problem in Andalucía, it is not only a problem in Spain," said Simón, arguing that "we live in a very globalised world, in which risks move at a speed that the professionals who have to control them can hardly keep up with."

Simón made this statement to the media before participating in the 'Nile Virus: a public health problem' forum in Seville on Thursday, 3 July.

He stated that we should all participate in responding to the so-called vector-borne diseases, including "all political forces, all technical forces and the population". The epidemiologist said that this framework goes beyond "the institutions", which means that the fight "also has a social component and that the community also has to learn to manage the new situation".

"We need to have a much more global vision than we had until very recently, where everyone lived in their own world and solved their own problems; this is no longer useful," he said.

Simón endorsed the understanding of the control of vector-borne diseases as "a public health problem" and pointed to the impact of climate change as a factor that "is greatly modifying our environments and changing the risks to which we are exposed".

Asked what the situation could be like this summer, Simón expressed his desire to "be optimistic", but then used the climatic situation to say that it depends on "the evolution of the vectors": "temperatures, humidity, their growth, their reproduction, their longevity".

On a more positive note, Simón highlighted the contribution of scientific and human development that "has allowed us to have tools to reduce these risks or control them in some way". However, "the fight is not going to be easy", given that in the background is climate change, with "the risks that are affecting us because of our own activity over decades".

Simón stated that "we have the means to mitigate the immediate impact", although "the real fight is in the very long term to control climate change and this depends a lot on our consumption habits".