On Monday 23 January, MEPs on the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) received Sandra Gallina, Director General of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety.
Covid-19 situation
According to Gallina, the Covid-19 situation in the EU has been complicated by outbreaks of other respiratory infections. She calls “strongly” for vaccination, especially booster vaccination.
Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). Gallina said the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) was reviewing the EU’s list of diseases under surveillance and may include RSV.
In its considerations published in July, the ECDC mentioned the need for a strengthened population-based disease surveillance system, which Gallina said would provide better data and insight.
Gallina highlighted the surveillance work carried out through the Early Warning and Response System for communicable diseases in the EU, which also allows hospitals to report bed needs. She calls on hospitals to make use of it, if necessary.
Medicines shortages
According to Gallina, the shortage is mainly of amoxicillin, especially in certain types of packaging and paediatric forms.
The main cause of the shortages, she says, is a miscalculation in terms of demand by pharmaceutical companies, which did not anticipate a spike in respiratory infections, occurring simultaneously in Europe, the US and Latin America. However, the spring and summer stocks have already been started on. For the experts, she added, this is a wake-up call. The infection situation is improving. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the Commission are maintaining surveillance.
Ms Gallina detailed the EMA’s action. She stressed that there are alternatives to the medicines that are in short supply. Peter Liese (EPP, German) objected that shortages were prolonging the hospitalisation of some children.
Gallina said that the revised pharmaceutical legislation should be patient-centred, but provide incentives for production. She prefers self-reliance to self-sufficiency in medicines.
Covid-19 wave in China
China has repeatedly refused vaccine assistance, Gallina confirmed. In an exchange with Chinese health authorities on 10 January, the Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety (DG SANTE) stressed the importance of using vaccines, but also treatments such as Paxlovid. “The response was not enthusiastic”, Gallina said.
OLAF could be called upon to investigate cases of fraud linked to Paxlovid.
Gallina stressed that the variants circulating in China already exist in Europe and that the measures adopted in the EU are more of a rehearsal, should a new problematic variant arise.
The measures taken by the Member States (see EUROPE 13092/1) are expected to be assessed around 3 or 7 February. The Health Security Committee (HSC) is planning weekly meetings.
Sandra Gallina welcomes the speed with which the Member States have come together. (Original version in French by Émilie Vanderhulst)