Informele Raad Volksgezondheid over de Vogelgriep op 20 oktober (en)

(20/10/05)

Health Ministers of the 25 EU Member States, the Health Commissioner and Ministers and delegations from Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia and Turkey, held their informal meeting under the UK Presidency on 20th October. Their discussions included an item on pandemic flu preparedness.

The Ministerial discussion followed a technical briefing from Dr Margaret Chan, the Assistant Director-General of the World Health Organisation responsible for pandemic preparedness.

Ministers stressed the critical nature of clear and objective communications with the public to reduce the likelihood of confusing messages. It is important to distinguish between avian flu, normal seasonal flu and pandemic flu.

The Ministers noted the discovery of highly pathogenic H5N1 avian flu in birds in Turkey and Romania. Ministers also noted that at present there are no reported cases of avian 'flu contracted from birds in humans in the EU.

EU Health Ministers noted the advice from the WHO and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control that the current outbreaks of avian flu pose a very low risk to the general population of Europe. There have, so far, been only very isolated cases of human infection by avian flu in South East Asia, in all cases these have been people in extended, close contact with infected birds. They noted the advice that poultry and poultry products were safe to eat if properly cooked.

Ministers agreed that it remained very important to keep the state of preparedness in the European Union for an outbreak of human pandemic flu under constant assessment.

The WHO confirmed that there is no increase in the level of risk of pandemic flu, but stressed that vigilance and surveillance needed to remain high. The WHO reported that, in order to become pandemic flu, the avian flu virus would need to change to allow it to transmit easily between humans: to date, there was no evidence of such a change. The WHO stressed the need to increase efforts to prepare for a pandemic: whilst there were positive signs that preparations in the EU were often ahead of those in other parts of the world, there was no room for complacency; in particular every country needed to develop its own pandemic plan.

Commissioner Kyprianou outlined the main findings from replies from the Member States to his recent letter asking for information about the state of pandemic preparedness. Echoing the message from the WHO, the Commissioner said that levels of preparedness varied significantly between Member States. The Commissioner stressed that more work was needed on how vaccines and anti-viral drugs would be made available in the event of a pandemic. Commissioner Kyprianou also outlined plans for a preparedness exercise "Common Ground" next month, which will be a simulation exercise focusing on communication between key players in the event of a pandemic flu outbreak. Ministers have been asked to be involved as part of this exercise and the lessons learnt will be discussed at the Health Council on December 9th.

EU Health Ministers considered their existing EU obligations and requirements in the area of pandemics. These centre on requirements on the Member States to collect surveillance information and to share this in a form that allows comparison across Europe. Member States are also committed to sharing with each other, and with the Commission, information about action to protect human health from the risks of pandemic flu. There was strong agreement that Member States needed to continue to co-ordinate their efforts in the face of the risk of a human pandemic, accepting, however, that this does not mean that the Member States are bound to take identical action across the European Union. The close working that had been established between the UN agencies (WHO in particular) and the European Union institutions, and between veterinary and human health experts, was strongly endorsed.

In discussion, the EU Health Ministers raised a wide range of ideas and possible priorities for further action at EU level. The Presidency and the Commission were keen to ensure strong coordination and information-sharing at EU level. The Presidency had established a cross-sectoral Presidency group, involving all 25 Member States and the Commission, to ensure that the Council's work on avian and pandemic flu is taken forward in a speedy and coherent way.

The Council would continue to monitor developments closely. Health Ministers are next scheduled to consider the issues at the December Council on 9 December, at which they will review progress on the concerns raised at the Informal and consider the human health aspects of the comprehensive Action Plan.

Finally, Ministers emphasised the need not only for planning across Europe, but for testing that plans drawn up were likely to work. They welcomed the technical meeting planned between the EU and WHO (European Region) next week to report back on case studies in a number of countries; and the Common Ground scenario exercise by the end of November. They asked for a report back from the Commission on the lessons learnt from both these exercises at the Health Council in December.

The Presidency reconfirmed that it stood ready to take appropriate action in Council if a human influenza pandemic were to start, stressed the need to take action to complete national plans and to continue with the current highest levels of vigilance. Work on the specific ideas generated at the Informal will be considered in the comprehensive Action Plan and will inform the Commission co-ordination work.