“Another great epidemic will come, caused by multi-resistant germs. Let’s be prepared.”

“Another great epidemic is coming, caused by multi-drug resistant germs.” Thus Massimo Galli, former president of SIMIT on the eve of the XIX Congress of the Italian Society for Infectious and Tropical Diseases. “This epidemic has taught us a lesson – said Galli – in fact, it underlined how important a good epidemiological network is, also to attend to some emergencies such as Covid-19. In recent years, however, infectious diseases have suffered severe cuts, complex units have become simple, while in some hospitals the figure of the infectious disease specialist has even been considered useless. And there has been no investment in territorial medicine for decades, and substantial differences have also been noted between one region and another ”.

For Galli, it is “appropriate, therefore, that this epidemic teaches us to go exactly in the opposite direction. Today public health, unfortunately, is in force in a semi-comatose state. It is essential, especially for the coming years, the presence of a specialized function in each hospital, not only from a strictly clinical point of view, but also from an epidemiological point of view, so that there is a possible early detection of the conditions that then they become of interest for territorial prevention in the broadest sense ”. Overall, Galli concluded, “I sincerely hope that we can draw on this lesson to be more prepared to deal with the other great epidemic that is coming: a pandemic that is not so progressive. We are talking about the one caused by multi-resistant germs, which affects both hospitals and the external environment, one of the main threats of this decade. And finally, I hope that we can be stronger to face ‘historical’ diseases, such as HIV and HCV. “