#EAPM - Johnson in ICU as Varadkar goes back to health work: EU Cancer Plan

First of all, with the news that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been moved to an intensive care unit after being admitted to hospital at the weekend with persistent COVID-19 symptoms, all of us here at EAPM would like to add our voices to the ‘good luck’ and ‘best wishes’ messages that are winging his way, writes European Alliance for Personalised Medicine (EAPM) Executive Director Denis Horgan 

We are in good company in sending all our best, as messages have already made their way to Boris from the likes of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg. There have, of course, been many others.

No-one would be blamed or focusing solely on coronavirus matters right now, but the fact is that other issues are ongoing and many of us are striving to keep several balls in the air as Europe juggles with the various virus-related priorities.

We include here such items as those relating to biomarker testing, our MEGA+ drive covering the sharing of all relevant health-related data, and the need for real-world evidence, not least in the adoption and funding criteria of new medicines and treatments.

Keeping the person in personalised health care has always been one of our key goals and that hasn’t changed. Nor will it.

Bridging conference in the pipeline

With that in mind, also upcoming up for the Alliance is our second ‘virtual conference’ of 2020 - a bridging conference between the Croatia and German EU presidencies, which will take place on 30 June, the day before before Germany takes the helm.

Under the title “Maintaining public trust in use of Big Data for health science”, the event, one can argue, superbly reflects the broader current situation in which the public are being asked to trust their own country’s government with Covid 19-related decisions, on movement, business closures, acquisition of protective gear and more. 

This is not easy given that a neighbouring Member State may well be adopting a different strategy.

Trust is one of the most important foundations on which we can place the building-blocks of much-needed co-operation, not least with agreed guidelines on, say, testing, and faith in agreed standards (such as those imposed by the EMA).

Clearly, at the heart of personalised medicine, is the hugely expanding use of health data. And transparency on why and how we use data is vital if Europe is to maintain the social licence for data-driven research. Trust is paramount.

The use of health data is obviously a sensitive topic. There’s certainly a need for the health-science community to talk more openly about using personal health data in research to enhance human health and eradicate diseases such as cancer - and the public has to be at the centre of any and all discussion.

Many national and international initiatives rely on comprehensive data analytics to drive evidence-based solutions to improve health outcomes.

This means, of course, that personal health data is an extremely valuable commodity for research and should only ever be used in a responsible, ethical and secure way that is in the interest of society.   

On the topic of testing, a debate is, not surprisingly, underway in respect of this novel coronavirus. More broadly, one of the ongoing goals of EAPM is improving biomarker access and high-quality testing. Both will be hot topics during the 30 June conference.

To this end, EAPM will be using the event to call on relevant stakeholders to develop a roadmap, and act upon it to achieve much-needed progress in these areas.

Certainly while the potential of biomarkers cannot be underestimated, it is clear that patient access to quality biomarker testing is a challenge - yet another barrier put in front of integrating personalised medicine into the EU’s health-care systems.

There’s much to be debated, and also up for discussion will be the current limitations of biomarkers, the use of centralized databases, and advice that is, or should be, given to patients prior to biomarker testing.

We sincerely hope you will be able to join us on the day.

Best of the rest

Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides knows all about trust-based-co-operation, given that her job has had a great deal to do with co-ordinating the EU’s health response to the virus crisis. 

Despite the fact that health is a member state competence, and there were certainly big examples of a lack of solidarity earlier in the outbreak, Kyriakides recently said that the pandemic was “not something that suddenly the Commission woke up to”, adding that Berlaymont boss von der Leyen was involved “from the beginning”.

“One has to keep in mind that the EU is not one country,” Kyriakides said. “It’s 27 and it takes a huge effort to have this level of coordination…in health as it does in other areas.”

She highlighted that “each member state has different realities on the ground…So we put down recommendations that were based on the scientific evidence that we had and we have, and shared it with Member States so they could adjust it to their realities”.

Kyriakides insisted that the Commission’s first approach is to find consensus, but when “more decisive action” is needed, “we will do it”. Good to hear.

Germany boost to nurses’ pay

Germany’s Federal Association of Employers in the Nursing Industry has come to a deal with the Verdi trade union that nursing staff there will receive a €1,500 bonus due to their particular burden during the coronavirus crisis. Part-time nurses will get a pro-rata bonus.

Meanwhile, the country’s health ministry has obliged hospitals to report daily the number of ICU beds and ventilation stations available to its DIVI register, it has been confirmed.

Our good friend German MEP Peter Liese last week punted that a similar registry should be created to monitor European capacities.

Staying in Germany, it’s been reported there that the country’s laboratories can now manage 100,000 COVID-19 tests per day, which is up by a huge 14x in the past four weeks.

More on masks

The WHO has made a bit of a u-turn of late on the use of protective face masks, saying that their widespread adoption of the same makes sense in countries where other preventive measures against the coronavirus are difficult to adopt.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus did not quite make a total recommendation, but the organisation has certainly tweaked his earlier comment that masks should be restricted to medical personnel and those infected.Shortages for those who need them most could still be an issue, though, he conceded.

And over in Turkey, the government has now made it illegal for anyone to sell face masks and is busy organising their free distribution to its citizens as well as expat residents.

And finally…

As we mentioned in a previous update, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar is set to return to work as a medical practitioner while the crisis continues. He has offered to work one session per week in areas that are within his scope of expertise.

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