COVID-19: Visit by Kamala Harris, Vice President of the United States, to the Institut Pasteur on November 9, 2021

As part of her trip to France, where she is attending the fourth Paris Peace Forum –which includes three round tables on the challenges raised by the COVID-19 pandemic–, Kamala Harris, Vice President of the United States, was keen to visit the Institut Pasteur. During her visit on November 9, 2021, she saluted the work of the Institut Pasteur's scientists and the unprecedented response of the Institut Pasteur's scientific community in tackling the COVID-19 epidemic over the past two years.

Accompanied by Stewart Cole, President of the Institut Pasteur, and Christophe d’Enfert, Scientific Director, Kamala Harris met several of the Institut Pasteur's scientists:

Hélène Strick-Marchand, James di Santo and Olivier Schwartz, who spoke about the latest progress in research on SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19.
Nathalie Aulner and Jean-Baptiste Masson, who presented the potential of new imaging technologies for facilitating and improving the diagnosis of some forms of cancer.

For the Vice President of the United States, this visit was also a chance to reconnect with the work of her mother, the renowned scientist Shyamala Gopalan, who in the 1980s conducted research in cooperation with a number of French scientists, especially Professor Étienne-Émile Beaulieu, who Kamala Harris was able to meet in private during her visit.

Kamala Harris' trip to France is an opportunity to reiterate the vital role played by international scientific cooperation, on a scale never seen before in the history of humanity, in paving the way for meaningful responses to the COVID-19 epidemic. As a key stakeholder in this effort, the Institut Pasteur's scientific community, working in collaboration with fellow scientists – including several US teams and universities –, has made a significant contribution, especially in terms of understanding infection, diagnosis, therapeutic avenues and the vaccination rollout in Europe.