Brussels, 13/10/2015 (Agence Europe) - As tragic as the Ebola epidemic was that destroyed the peoples and economies of countries in West Africa, it has enabled health and inter-sectoral cooperation to be improved and has made the EU aware of the need to remain watchful so as to contribute to totally eradicating the disease and to being better prepared for new epidemics.
This is the conclusion reached by the participants in the conference that was organised by the Luxembourg Presidency of the EU in Mondorf-les-Bains (Luxembourg) on 12 October - Lessons learned for public health from the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. The conference brought together health ministers, high level representatives from the member states, the European Commission, the WTO and NGOs.
“We don't know when the next epidemic will affect us, but we do know that inter-sectoral cooperation is crucial if we want to strengthen health safety in the EU”, said Luxembourg's health minister, Lydia Mutsch, in whose view Ebola has enabled cooperation to be developed between public health authorities and research, development and military authorities “in order to test the application of the decision on serious cross-border threats to health, which was adopted in October 2013”. In addition, Ebola has enabled light to be shed on the importance of solidarity towards the countries affected, and also between European countries.
In the view of European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety Vytenis Andriukaitis, Ebola “served as a test for the EU's state of preparation” on this. Believing it will be essential in the future to help vulnerable countries offer minimum standards of hygiene, medical care and vaccination to everyone, and also to remedy the lack of education on errors of interpretation, Andriukaitis calls on the member states for “more cooperation and sharing” - especially in the joint purchase of pandemic vaccines.
European Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management Christos Stylianides, who is the EU coordinator for the fight against Ebola, stated that the global response to this pandemic had initially “left much to be desired”. He commended “the remarkable work” of Médecins sans Frontières (MSF), which in the future should never again have to serve to remedy the wait-and-see policy of the international community. Ebola claimed 11,000 lives and infected over 28,000 people in 2014-15. “We are close to zero cases but we're still not there”, Stylianides warned. Convinced that there will be other epidemics, he underlined the need to ensure the swift deployment of four mobile laboratories if there are future cases. The European Health Prize was awarded to several NGOs at this conference, which were outstanding in their involvement. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)