#EAPM - Scramble to the left and to the right, pursued by a virus…

Good day, one and all, and here is the European Alliance for Personalised Medicine (EAPM) update – for those of you returning from les grandes vacances, welcome back, and if you are still wringing the last few drops of holidays out of August, enjoy it while it lasts. News today of vaccines and French retaliatory quarantines – on with the update, writes EAPM Executive Director Denis Horgan.

Scramble for vaccines

Wealthy countries have struck deals to buy more than two billion doses of coronavirus vaccine in a scramble that could leave limited supplies in the coming year. Meanwhile, an international effort to acquire vaccines for low- and middle-income countries is struggling to gain traction. Most experts say that late 2020 or early 2021 is the soonest vaccines could be approved and rolled out; they must first undergo large-scale phase III clinical trials to assess their effectiveness and safety. (Russia has approved a vaccine for limited use, but it hasn’t completed phase III trials.) 

But pre-orders are rolling in. By mid-August, the United States had secured 800 million doses of at least 6 vaccines in development, with an option to purchase around one billion more. The United Kingdom was the world’s highest per-capita buyer, with 340 million purchased: around 5 doses for each citizen. The European Union nations — which are buying vaccines as a group — and Japan have locked down hundreds of millions of doses of vaccines for themselves. And, in making the latest pitch for wealthier countries to join the COVAX Facility for jointly purchasing coronavirus vaccines, World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the pooled effort means prices “will be kept as low as possible”. 

EU prepares for future outbreaks

The European Commission has presented a communication on short-term measures to strengthen EU’s health preparedness for new COVID-19 outbreaks.  The Commission is applying lessons learned from the first months of the outbreak, when pro-active coordinated measures on EU-level were missing, but competencies have not changed and the member states are responsible for implementing the measures. The communication focuses on necessary actions needed to enhance preparedness, including testing and contact tracing, improved public health surveillance and widened access to medical countermeasures such as personal protective equipment, medicines and medical devices.  

France to announce retaliatory coronavirus measures against UK

Advertisement

France will announce coronavirus restrictions for British travelers in the coming days, Europe Minister Clément Beaune announced. “We will have a reciprocity measure so that our British friends do not close the border in one direction only,” Beaune said.

Since 15 August, the UK has imposed a 14-day quarantine on all travellers returning from France and several other European countries due to high coronavirus infection rates. The British decision to quarantine people traveling from France was condemned at the time by Beaune, who warned of reciprocation.

The British government announced that all travelers returning from France must “self-certify that they are not suffering coronavirus symptoms or have been in contact with a confirmed case within 14 days.”

However, the French government may have plans to go even further. “There will undoubtedly be measures of restriction for the travelers who return from the United Kingdom,” Beaune said, adding that a decision will be made in the coming days “by the prime minister and the council of defence”.

Former Italian PM: EU responded faster to coronavirus without Brits

Former Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta, while saying that he had always regretted the UK’s decision to leave the EU, nevertheless said that Britain’s absence “has probably allowed us to do things with a speed that would have not been possible if it had remained”. “Europe is a unity and there cannot be a fragmentation of national responses to such an important crisis,” Letta added.

Public inquiry demanded on UK PPE

In the UK, when the cases of coronavirus began to surge and lockdown finally happened, the panic ordering of PPE began and so too did a scramble for lucrative government contracts. Companies with very small balance sheets and no obvious expertise or experience in supplying PPE, but often with links to the government or conservative party, seemed to land a lot of the deals. According to the GoodLaw Project, there needs to be a public inquiry. “Frontline NHS staff and care workers are putting their lives at risk because of the Government's failure to provide adequate PPE. A number of the protective gowns that the government flew in from Turkey have been deemed unsafe for use and are now sat in a warehouse gathering dust.  

The consequences of these failures are devastating. Hundreds of those on the frontline of this crisis will already have lost their lives. The Government has said lessons will be learnt in time. But those on the frontline of this crisis can’t afford to wait. They need PPE now,” the organization stated.  “Unless we understand these failings now, we risk making the same mistakes all over again. A society that does not learn from its mistakes is condemned to repeat them. We owe those on the frontline of this crisis more than that.”

Commission registers European Citizens' Initiative on COVID-19 medicines

The European Commission decided to register a European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) entitled ‘Right to Cure’. The organisers of the ECI call on the Union “to put public health before private profit [and] make anti-pandemic vaccines and treatments a global public good, freely accessible to everyone”. 

The Commission considers that the ECI is legally admissible, as it meets the necessary conditions, and therefore decided to register it. Following the registration of the ECI, the organisers can start, within the next six months, a one-year process of collection of signatures of support. The organizers can now start the process of collecting a million signatures from at least seven member countries, within a year. If they meet that requirement, the Commission will have six months to formally respond.

Catalonia COVID restrictions

The Catalan government announced tighter restrictions on Monday (24 August) to try and stem the recent surge in the number of new Covid-19 cases.  One of the main measures is a two-week ban on gatherings of more than 10 people, whether private or in public. The exceptions are professional meetings and transport.  Catalan President Quim Torra justified the move on the grounds that 70% of recent infections in the region originate from get-togethers with friends or family.  “This is where we have to attack”, he said.   Torra reminded the public of other restrictions and measures which remain in place: social distancing of 1.5 metres, using face masks, regular hand washing, the closure of nightspots, limits on restaurant opening hours and a ban on drinking and smoking in public places.  He also urged people to stay at home as much as possible and to limit their social contacts.

Mental health support for Irish students 

Further and Higher Education Minister Simon Harris has announced a €5 million support package for Irish students’ wellbeing and mental health.  The announcement comes as students face a lot of uncertainty around the reopening of third level institutions. The fund is comprised of €3 million that had already been allocated for student mental health and wellbeing plus an additional €2 million in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.  

Greece faces coronavirus hit comparable to debt crisis

Although Greece has suffered less than most European countries from actual coronavirus cases, its seasonal-visitors based economy is facing an economic hit in line with the worst year of its debt crisis, and the biggest decline among all EU countries. 

And that is everything for now – the EAPM newsletter will be arriving this week, so keep your eyes peeled for that, and until then, stay safe and well.

Share this article: