Brussels, 18/04/2016 (Agence Europe) - European Union member states have again affirmed their commitment to tackling antimicrobial resistance. At an informal meeting on Monday 18 April, health ministers also discussed access to innovative medicines and improving foodstuffs.
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) arises when micro-organisms which cause infection survive exposure to antimicrobial medicines which previously killed them or stopped their growth. At the meeting in Amsterdam, all the national delegations stressed the urgency of the need to address this issue, which every year causes around 25,000 deaths in the EU. The outcome of their discussions should assist the Dutch Presidency of the Council of the EU to draft conclusions on this matter, to be adopted at June's Health Council. These conclusions and the evaluation of the current strategy will inform the forthcoming European action plan on antimicrobial resistance. The Commission has said that this action plan “is very likely to be published in 2017”.
Also on the agenda were improving foodstuffs and access to innovative medicines. On this latter issue, three civil society associations wrote to European health ministers on 15 April to call for a discussion on access to safe and timely access to new drugs and around the pricing and reimbursement of drugs, including those drugs that have been developed for small groups of patients.
“The Council should consider asking the Commission to investigate whether and how the lack of transparency of drug prices impacts affordable access to pharmaceuticals and how greater transparency will support local price and reimbursement decisions”, states the open letter from the Association Internationale de la Mutualité (AIM), the European Public Health Alliance (EPHA) and the European Social Insurance Platform (ESIP). The three organisations also call on the Council to start a discussion on how to deal with prices in innovative fields, such as biological drugs, “where currently the relationship between the cost of innovation and a reasonable price is absent”. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)