European Parliament resolution on the evaluation of the management of H1N1 influenza in 2009-2010 in the EUArchived

The European Parliament adopted a resolution on the evaluation of the pandemic in its sitting on the 8th March 2011. This resolution was drafted by the Green party MEP Michèle Rivasi on behalf of the Committee for Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) and it reviews the documentation related to the pandemic response, including two ECDC documents, summarises the evolution of the response and calls for a number of actions to be taken at international or European levels.The Parliament calls for a revision of pandemic plans in EU member states, reinforcement of cooperation and coordination between the member states, involvement of health professionals at every stage of the preparation and application of pandemic response strategies and continued investment in national epidemiological, serological and virological surveillance centres. At the EU level, the Parliament calls for clarification of the roles and responsibilities of key actors at EU level, reinforcement of the mandate of the Committee of Public Health and investment into research on preventive public health measures; in addition, it expresses its approval of procedures for joint procurement of vaccines and medicines. In particular, the European Commission (EC) should improve the accelerated authorisation procedures for medicines in a crisis.The resolution emphasises also the independent nature of ECDC’s risk assessment process and encourages adequate means for this task. Moreover, it invites ECDC to review best practice in national influenza preparedness plans and to recommend best practices in the fields of crisis management, vaccination and communication strategies. ECDC is requested to support the EC and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in producing a summary report in one year’s time on the national pandemic vaccination strategies with specific information on the number of doses purchased, costs, number of pandemic influenza infections and adverse reactions to vaccines.Particular attention is paid in the resolution to transparency of decision-making processes and conflicts of interest among experts advising the decision-making process. The Parliament requests for an adoption of common definition of conflicts of interest among European Public Health Auhtorities.

The report of this evaluation (in English and other languages) is available here.The PDF version of the report of the evaluation (only in English) is available here.The European Parliament press release in connection with the publication of this report is available here.  

This and other national and international evaluations can be reviewed through the ECDC’s Pandemic Evaluations and Lessons Learnt web-site.