Filenews 1 March 2021
Without solidarity or pan-European solutions, we cannot deal effectively with public health emergencies, it was the message a year ago and it is just as important today as addressing new challenges, Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakidou pointed out today at the end of the teleconference of the 27 EU Health Ministers.
The Commissioner stressed that she asked Member States to increase the exchange of information on national vaccination plans and to share them with ECDC.
She announced that vaccine deliveries would increase significantly in the coming months, including a fourth vaccine expected to enter the market in the coming weeks, and made it clear to Ministers that there should be no gaps between deliveries and vaccinations, nor vaccines that are not being used, pointing out that we must be one step ahead in adapting and increasing the production of new vaccines if necessary for mutations.
She noted, however, that at the same time more communicable variants are spreading across the EU and currently exist in all Member States, with the potential to lead to more serious diseases and hospitalization. "This is of great concern to us all," she stressed.
The Commissioner also referred to the preparation for the European Health Union which is emerging in the long term and with which we will be better prepared to prevent and deal with future health crises.
However, she called on Ministers "to strengthen our action now, immediately, decisively and collectively".
She referred to the mutation detection test in 5% -10% of tests through HERA Incubator and through funding of EUR 200 million, as all Member States do not have sufficient capacity and should start sending samples to ECDC .
She said she called on Ministers to make greater use of sewage monitoring as a tool to speed up the detection of variations and announced that she would present a recommendation for this.
The Commissioner also called for an increase in PCR testing and pointed out that as the EU we have a common list of COVID-19 rapid antigen tests, a series of tests for which Member States will mutually recognise the results and a common standardised dataset to be included in the results certificates.
"There is an EU framework for use by Member States and to ensure that tests carried out in one Member State also apply in other Member States - something crucial today, especially in the context of travel," she stressed. "And it will become even more critical as we move forward with work on the vaccination certificate where this (vaccination) could be a feature included in order to facilitate the relaxation of restrictions and non-discrimination," she said.
"As more tests are needed, we are buying over 20 million rapid antigen tests for delivery to member states by April, using EUR 100 million from the emergency support instrument," the Commissioner announced, referring to a joint procurement process for rapid antigen testing - more than 550 million in the coming months - for Member States.
She also pointed out that the EU Industrial Working Group is "working fully to maximise vaccine production capacity and in the future, we are ready to negotiate new or tailored agreements on vaccines against variations".
Source: eyenews / CYPE
