The production of vaccines against new diseases should be able to be ramped up quickly with the help of the authority.
(Photo: dapd)
Brussels An office is being created in Brussels that will have to go back to sleep straight away. The new authority for health emergencies should always be awakened when pandemics or other dangers spread across borders.
This is a lesson from the early months of the corona pandemic, which, in retrospect, was used surprisingly poorly. While vaccine developers at Biontech and Curevac, for example, got to work because they recognized the extent of the disaster, the EU countries were preoccupied with themselves.
When it comes to the lessons of the pandemic, reference is made again and again to the USA, where it was different. The local authority Barda had power of attorney to do everything to ensure that the country was supplied with vaccines quickly. She also had enough money.
This is now seen as the reason why vaccines were available in the USA even faster than in the EU – although the most successful vaccine was developed by Biontech in Germany. “It is a pity, however, that there is currently no European instrument that can be compared to the Barda. That is a deficit, “said Biontech boss Ugur Sahin in the summer of 2020 of the” Süddeutsche Zeitung “.
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That should have changed in a few months. EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen presented the answer to the American Barda this Thursday. In Europe the authority will be called Hera, which stands for “European Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority”.
Hera aims to overcome slowness in the EU
Hera is supposed to gather information about threats and initiate at the right moment that a health emergency is declared. This state of emergency has not yet existed at European level. As soon as he is there, the “Health Crisis Board” meets, which controls the response to the crisis. The purchase of the vaccines should also run through Hera.
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This is to remove the EU’s greatest weakness: its slowness. Before a decision is made in Brussels, the member states often need months to develop a position and then negotiate it with the other states. Hera is supposed to accelerate this process by shortening the decision-making process.
“If we had already had Hera, we would have seen the crisis coming,” said EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides. The authority would have ensured that development and production would have been ramped up much faster.
Starting next year, Hera should have over six billion euros annually. The authority can also access a further 24 billion euros from various EU pots.
Even without the outbreak of another pandemic, Hera will not be idle. The agency is to invest in research, production capacity and stocks to ensure that the EU is better prepared for the next crisis.
The economy is involved in several places. It will benefit from the research funds and also from the fact that it is supposed to maintain production capacities. In the event of a crisis, the EU can then fall back on them and does not have to first search for suitable works.
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