#EAPM - Co-operating in health care: Bad news can sometimes mean a little good news

Just ahead of the EAPM Presidency ‘virtual conference’ next Tuesday, (24 March), which will take place online. Here’s the link, and all at EAPM hope you will join us. There’ll certainly be plenty to talk about, writes European Alliance for Personalised Medicine (EAPM) Executive Director Denis Horgan.

Not least the rare shows of EU solidarity in these times of COVID-19, self-isolation, business closures, flight cancellations, sports events postponements, border shutdowns - and nowhere to have a coffee or a beer except at home.

Despite the fact that countries in the bloc have been doing their own thing for weeks, with varying degrees of success or not, it all seems to finally be coming together - at least in part - as everyone realises that each and every member state faces essentially the same challenges from this particularly nasty virus.

While healthcare has always been a priority for citizens at the ballot box, whether at an individual (personalised health care) or/and collective (population based healthcare) level, politicians are very often slow either to realise this or to do much about it once they do catch on.

Hopefully, this will start to change. Perhaps the newly diagnosed Michel Barnier can help with that? Turns out he’s not so busy with Brexit negotiations at the moment…

EAPM has always argued that there needs to be an enhanced role for the EU to support enhanced cooperation and cooperation between nations to deliver better healthcare. That it has taken such a dire emergency to put the much-guarded Member State competence in the area into perspective is regrettable, and the whole squabbling over HTA is starting to look, well, a bit silly.

So, what’s the latest?

despite best intentions, a lot of important events are going right down the pan, as you may well have noticed (Olympics next, surely?). This state of affairs includes what would have been the latest meeting due in the long-time-in-coming investment protection agreement between the EU and China.

A Beijing-based summit between Ursula von der Leyen and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in Beijing, planned for the end of this month, has been postponed.

And don’t expect such cancellations/postponements to end any time soon. Nor should you expect to suddenly be able to go out to meet your pals. According to French President Emmanuel Macron: “We don’t know how many waves we’re going to have and how the virus is going to behave and how we will absorb it.”

As it turns out, the Commission, while putting back the deadlines for most Horizon 2020 grant applications, has thankfully not done so for one specific area. Step forward the Innovative Medicines Initiative calls. If ever that were needed, the time is surely now.

Beyond Paris and Brussels, and out across the EU, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, meanwhile, this week spoke to the public via TV and appealed for the nation to behave rationally and show solidarity. The often-called ‘leader of the free world’ said: “We have to limit the risk that we infect one another as much as we can,” and described the situation as “serious and open”.

The chancellor made no bones about her disapproval of bulk buying and hoarding, and described such behaviour as useless and selfish, while appealing for solidarity.

She said: “Since German unification, no, since World War II, there has been no greater challenge to our country that depends so much on us acting together in solidarity.”

In Belgium, Prime Minister Sophie Wilmès should be in charge for a minimum of six months after parliament voted to allow her the time to tackle the COVID-19 crisis. She will need to go back for a second confidence vote once the six months are up.

In the Netherlands, the country’s under-the-cosh Medical Care Minister Bruno Bruins suddenly resigned, saying: “Combating the corona crisis is like practicing sport at the highest level. And I have noticed that my body can no longer cope with this at the moment due to over exhaustion.” 

He had previously collapsed during a debate on the virus and its implications.

Italy, meanwhile, which is the worst-affected country in the world as it stands, has warned that smokers are much-more likely to develop severe symptoms of the virus. Currently, 22% of Italians over the age of 15 smoke, which is not good news any way you look at it.

In the east, the Czech Republic has gone for radical measures over the virus, with health minister Adam Vojtěch saying that: “Medicines that are intended for the Czech market will remain only for Czech citizens and will not be exported to other countries.” 

Romania also recently banned the export of medicines needed to treat the virus.

Back across in Denmark, the country’s Medicines Agency has brought in an emergency procedure for applications to start clinical trials in respect of Covid-19, with the aim of turning assessments around in three days instead of the usual 35.

Meanwhile Bulgaria, as well as other member states, has noted that a further downside of self-isolating, assuming most people aren’t overly happy about it, is the fact that the number of blood donors has dropped. 

Sofia’s health ministry recently announced that the country’s haematological staff will now work weekends and holidays where possible in order to supply the blood needed by healthcare facilities.

Other health supplies across the EU are suffering due to new restrictions on borders, it seems, while in other developments Interpol has been seizing counterfeit face masks, dodgy hand sanitiser and unauthorised antiviralsfrom online sales. 

Interpol says that the virus situation “has offered an opportunity for fast cash, as criminals take advantage of the high market demand for personal protection and hygiene products”.

On a more general note, a group of organizations representing doctors, hospitals and social security bodies have written to the European Commission requesting a platform to meet on how to respond to public health crises. It won’t happen, though, until the current one is out of the way.

In their letter to the Commission, AIM (the International Association of Health Care Mutuals and Health Care Funds), CPME (Standing Committee of European Doctors), ESIP (European Social Insurance Platform) and HOPE (the European Hospital and Healthcare Federation) have called for a review of investments in R&D alongside a “serious discussion about Europe’s dependency on single sourcing” in the production and distribution of medicines and medical devices outside the EU.

Plenary for Parliament 

For those of us wondering where all our elected MEPs have gone, the news is that an extraordinary plenary session will take place, at least via email, to discuss the virus and ongoing situation.

A key element will be to motivate investment in EU healthcare systems, through a “Coronavirus Response Investment Initiative.”

We’re talking here about a plan to make €8 billion of unused cohesion money available to Member States plussuggested access to a further €29 billion brought forward from the EU budget. 

Also up for a vote is financial assistance to the bloc’s nations, via extending the scope of the EU Solidarity Fund to cover public health emergencies. 

It seems that sometimes it takes really bad news to prompt some relatively good news…

Once again, you can hear all the latest news - good, bad and otherwise - when tuning in to EAPM’s conference next week. Here’s that link again.

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