Catalonia has the right temperature, the type of mosquitoes, and the necessary flow of travelers for tropical diseases to become increasingly frequent, especially during the summer months. The climate crisis is advancing relentlessly, and every year thousands of people travel to areas where these pathologies circulate intensely, increasing the risk of autochthonous cases and for transmission to become endemic. Chikungunya disease is one of those infections that worries health authorities, and since the beginning of the year, 43 cases have already been detected throughout the State, seven times more than last year in the same period, when only 6 had been diagnosed. Of these, 28 are in Catalonia, all imported cases from countries where outbreaks are currently occurring.

The laboratory at Hospital Clínic de Barcelona was the first in Spain to detect a new coronavirus that ultimately caused the worst health crisis in modern times. It was February 25, 2020, as the head of the center's Microbiology Service, Climent Casals, recalls, and the date is etched in memory. The outbreak of COVID-19 paralyzed the world with serious health, economic, and social consequences, but it also had a major impact on the other pathogens that had been circulating in our country until then; it displaced them and practically achieved a monopoly on infections. Five years later, pre-pandemic normality has returned, and the map of bacteria and viruses has also changed. Therefore, professionals insist on the importance of having a surveillance system capable of detecting and anticipating any emergency. so that what happened in 2020 does not happen again.

Viruses don't take vacations. "They're present all year round, but the protagonist changes depending on the temperature and the climate," explains Fran Fernández Segura, family doctor at the CAP la Paz in Barcelona. Viruses are not, therefore, exclusive to winter. And the most common in the respiratory system are enteroviruses and rhinoviruses. The coronavirus also circulates. "It's true that summer climatic factors aren't the most suitable for them to survive, but viruses do," he adds.

Health authorities' forecasts have been met: the seventh wave's number of cases began to fall after reaching its peak between June 27 and July 3 with 40,500 weekly cases. According to data from the Information System for the Surveillance of Infections in Catalonia (Sivic), 34,447 positive cases were diagnosed in the last seven days, about 6,000 fewer than the previous week, and the rate of new hospital admissions is stabilising at around 2,000 admissions. Occupancy in intensive care units (ICU) is not growing either, with about fifty seriously ill patients, nor is mortality, with about sixty deaths per week.

Coronavirus is now part of the portfolio of respiratory viruses closely monitored by the Department of Health. It will no longer attempt to find all cases, as it does with other pathogens with a practically stable or seasonal appearance, such as influenza or respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), which causes bronchiolitis in children-. The Health Dpt has presented a new system this Friday to check for the main respiratory pathogens affecting the health of the Catalan population. It is a step further towards the normalisation of covid, after two years with epidemiological network focused exclusively on it. "This system is nourished by the lessons of the last two years," summarised the secretary of Public Health, Carmen Cabezas.