Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-02-10-Speech-2-037"
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"en.20040210.2.2-037"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, as others have already said, a little under a year ago in this very place, when the SARS epidemic was at its height, we called for the creation of a European centre to deal with modern day epidemics; so far as its tasks were concerned, at any rate, it would be modelled on the Atlanta CDC. Obviously this was something that needed to be done at European level, first and foremost because no fewer than 19 new emergent and fatal viruses have appeared since 1976, viruses that know no frontiers and move as fast as an aeroplane: Aids, the Ebola virus, the West Nile virus, SARS, to name but a few.
It is something that needs to be done at European level, too, because this is where Europe’s health must be defended whenever that can and must be done better here than at the other levels, be it local authorities, regions or states. And that is clearly the case now, when we are having to combat these viruses that are transmissible to man. The epidemic of atypical pneumonia has confirmed the courage of those researchers and doctors who have risked their lives to alert the international community, and even if Europe has escaped relatively unscathed in this case, we must remain vigilant. SARS has not been wiped out and, as many have said this morning, other viruses are lying in wait for a new mutation that will make the leap to man, like bird flu.
That is why common sense, the relevance of the proposals made by our rapporteur, Mr Bowis – whom I also want to thank warmly here – and the quality of the compromise reached with the Irish Presidency require that tomorrow we applaud the rapid creation of this European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.
As I was saying, this organisation will have many precise and vital tasks: the ability to respond swiftly to a viral epidemic or one deliberately caused by a bioterrorist attack, information to the public on all the risks of contamination, greater international cooperation, chiefly with the WHO of course. This centre will also – and I am not the first to say or reiterate it today – (and why not?) have to create a European network of laboratories and contribute to the search for vaccines for these diseases that are still resistant to antibiotics. The marketing of an antiviral vaccine or antiviral drugs is always a race against the clock and sometimes takes decades. That is why it is essential that we continue to invest as much in screening tests, I should say, as in inactivation technologies. In this connection, I note Commissioner Byrne’s commitment – as he said just now – to push the limits of the Treaty as far as he can in the matter.
Meanwhile, in the short term, in 2005 that is, the Europe of the 25 will have its Disease Prevention and Control Centre, and we must look beyond that very strong signal to the sign of a Europe of health that is advancing."@en1
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