Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-10-25-Speech-2-035"
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"en.20051025.4.2-035"2
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Mr President, I should like to thank the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety and the Members for today's debate, both for the question and for the motion for a resolution. It is indeed very, very important and I welcome it, because I see that we and Parliament are on the same wavelength, we have the same priorities and, of course, the same concerns.
Without doubt, there are problems because the industry cannot respond at the moment to the orders which have been placed. I shall be in contact shortly – now that I have a full picture of the situation in the Member States – and shall be holding new meetings with the industry, so that we can examine how they intend to resolve the production and supply problem.
During the informal Council in England two days ago, the idea was also mooted of a Community stock of antivirals. Of course, on the basis of the Treaty, we do not have the competence for that, but if we are instructed by the Council, we are willing to discuss it so that – just as the World Health Organisation has stocks in the event of crisis or emergency – there is something similar at Community level. However, it is important that we advise citizens that these drugs are not preventive, that they are not vaccines and that they have to be taken on prescription and that individual citizens cannot treat themselves.
As far as the pandemic vaccine is concerned, and this is my last point, we need first of all to distinguish – as Mr Trakatellis quite rightly did – between the seasonal influenza vaccine and the pandemic vaccine, which does not yet exist. We are encouraging the Member States to increase seasonal influenza inoculation among high-risk groups, and we shall most probably examine this issue with the experts as regards workers on farms and in danger areas, but not – I repeat – for the whole of Europe. The Member States must define the high-risk groups, so that inoculation against seasonal influenza can be increased – I repeat – among the high-risk groups only. This will help in the way which Mr Trakatellis indicated earlier and it will also help cooperation with industry, by giving financial incentive – that is how the system works – to increase production and meet requirements in the event of a pandemic.
Of course, the vaccine also needs to be created in the event of a pandemic once the virus appears; this is not possible now. However, as Mr Trakatellis rightly said, this takes six to eight months and certainly no less than six. We are working together with the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products and the industry and making all the relevant preparations and we are confident that all this will cut the time needed by three months, which is a fairly considerable timesaving. I wish we could achieve more, but this will cut the time needed from when the virus is recognised by the World Health Organisation to when it will be possible to produce the corresponding vaccine by about half.
Four companies have already expressed an interest in commencing cooperation with the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products and I am confident that others will follow. However, what is important – and I shall discuss this when I meet them – is the finding that: firstly, shortages are starting to emerge even for seasonal influenza vaccines, and I want them to tell me how they intend to resolve this problem and, secondly, that in research for the production of the vaccine, we want the companies to coordinate with each other so that they do not do the same work, so that there is no overlap, so that they move in different directions at the same time and we can cover all eventualities. I shall therefore be meeting with the industry and I shall, of course, update the House accordingly, as soon as I have some results.
I shall close here. Thank you for your attention; I shall, of course, listen to the debate with a great deal of interest and I am always ready to update Parliament fully because, as you know, you are the strongest allies I have in this endeavour.
As time is limited, I should like today to cover the most basic issues referred to in the motion for a resolution and the question and to add that I shall send Mr Florenz, the chairman of the Committee on the Environment and Public Health, a detailed memorandum on the various issues raised today, so that the House also has some of the technical details at its disposal.
First – and I feel obliged to do this after everything I have heard recently – I should like to clarify the difference between avian influenza, which is the veterinary issue concerning birds and animals, and the possible influenza pandemic, which is a possibility which has been identified by the World Health Organisation, as Mr Trakatellis said, and for which we need to make intensive preparations, because we do not know exactly when it will strike.
The presence of avian influenza in Europe – and I shall emphasise this so that European citizens hear it too – does not affect the probability of a possible pandemic. That is why there is no need for panic, but there is need for concern, so that we make the necessary preparations.
I also wish to emphasise that the European Union and the Member States have the best and the highest levels of preparedness in the world. Of course this does not mean that, because we compare favourably with other countries or other areas on the planet, we can feel satisfied or that we have reached the point of preparedness needed in order for our citizens to feel safe. There is still plenty of room for improvement and further preparation, even though I acknowledge that, since we last debated this subject in the relevant committee, progress has been made on the part of the Member States and I need to emphasise that.
Of course, there are different levels of preparedness between the Member States and what is important for us is not to grade or categorise the Member States, but to put pressure on them – and my thanks to Parliament for precisely this support for me – so that all the Member States have a satisfactory level of preparedness.
Today I am in the welcome position of being able to tell you that we have in our possession all 25 national preparedness plans from all the Member States, which was not the case when we held the debate in committee. Of course, I must accept that some of these are still in the form of preliminary drafts, but that does not matter; they exist and they are being examined today, in Copenhagen, with the European Disease Prevention and Control Centre and the World Health Organisation.
At the same time, we are in the process of revising our Community preparedness plan, which was adopted in March 2004 and will also take account of the national plans and the preparedness exercise which we shall carry out in a few weeks, when we shall test these plans to see how effective and efficient they are and to examine how they mesh with each other and with the relevant Community plan.
As far as the question of drugs – the question of antivirals – is concerned, they are not a panacea and do not resolve all the problems; they are the first defensive weapon which we have at our disposal. We have today at least 20 Member States that have ordered or started stocking the relevant drug and, according to my information, the remaining Member States are also moving in this direction."@en1
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