Lecture: “Emerging Infectious Diseases: Why? How?”UM Thursdays

Thursday, May 11, 2017, from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
School of Medicine (historic building), anatomy lecture hall.
Lecture presented by Professor Eric Delaporte, Director of the TransVIHMI unit (IRD-University of Montpellier) and Head of the Department of Infectious and Tropical Diseases at Montpellier University Hospital.

In recent years, the news has been dominated by waves of highly publicized emerging diseases, with Ebola and Zika being the most recent examples. But without a doubt, the most devastating emerging disease to emerge in recent years is AIDS, whose causative agent, the HIV virus, has infected 60 million people worldwide over the past 30 years.
The most extraordinary thing about AIDS is that this public health catastrophe was caused by a single instance of a virus jumping from chimpanzees to humans.
How can such an infection emerge in humans, and how can it spread to epidemic proportions? Only multidisciplinary research—in which researchers from the IRD and the University of Montpellier actively participated—has been able to answer these questions.
In the case of AIDS, it took nearly 20 years to unravel the mystery of the epidemic's origin.
Where? When? How? Why? Based on this exploration of our origins, we will discuss lessons for the future.
Watch the video “AIDS: On the African Trail”

UMThursdays”

The University of Montpellier, with its nine faculties, two schools, and six institutes, is home to a wealth of instructors andProfessors a wide variety of fields of study. The university has chosen to highlight them by offering a unique series of lectures:UM ThursdaysUM 
A variety of topics and venues: these events are designed as a journey through theUM various units, so that everyone can discover and discuss academic topics presented in a way that is accessible to all.