What is Europe’s strategy in combating COVID-19 strains?
The first public event of the EHS Task Force will debate the Commission’s work on emergency preparedness and the EU’s capacity to swiftly secure access to the necessary vaccines, whenever needed. Join our discussion on HERA (European Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority) Incubator.

SESSION HIGHLIGHTS

Pierre Delsaux:

• “The HERA Incubator was created to monitor the situation & understand the present & future COVID variants to easily decide if the current vaccines are still effective & adapt the vaccination system.”
• “The HERA Incubator will allow us to be ready to quickly inject a new vaccine in Europe in winter in case there is a new variant that requires a modification in the vaccine.”
• “Sequencing is fundamental to detect variants of concern on the European ground. The European Commission has invested 200 million EUR to aid the member states to operate the sequencing to have a clear picture of what is happening.”
• “The virus will continue to mutate. The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control is exchanging information to know exactly which variants are appearing around the world to make sure we monitor the situation. Global cooperation is essential.”
• “Clinical trials of the COVID vaccines didn’t take place in the EU. The HERA Incubator -with EC funds- has created a clinal trial network in the EU to speed up the authorisation process for a new variant vaccine.”
• “HERA will not only focus on COVID it will have a much broader scope – focus on future pandemics: monitoring the situation, anticipating the issue & providing the necessary measures.”

Maria Carvalho:

• “There is a need for sustainable funding. More investment in fundamental research. – This has allowed us to develop a vaccine in a short time.”
• ”We need more investment in research. HERA could promote research and cooperation in the biomedical area. The more open we are to the world, the more we can learn and act.”
• “Health ecosystem: we need more investment & be able to transform the knowledge in solutions in a short time and in an effective & affordable way. We need to reduce the bureaucracy & the market fragmentation.” 

Luc Debruyne

• “2021 is a complex year because it is all about the virus behaviour and its effect on the vaccination strategies. We are turning to a regional approach; CEPI will be an enabler to make sure we deal with this pandemic in a global collaborative way.”
• “We need to use innovation in the broadest way to make sure we can deal better with future pandemics.”
• “The upscaling of the sequencing is not good enough. UK is far ahead the EU. To go ahead with the fight against the new variants we need to change the vaccination strategy.”
• “You need money during a crisis, but you also need sustainable funding before the crisis starts. It is important to create an insurance policy to cover the risks.”
• “We are the generation that can make a difference for the future. Innovation is key. We need to do a much better job in community engagement.”

Heike Galbraith

• “Sustainable funding will be of great importance with HERA.”
• “HERA will play an important role, especially for the late-stage development. Our vaccine is working well, but we are closely monitoring the situation for new variants.”
• “I can only support the use of artificial intelligence & IT in improving clinical trials. There is a huge unlocked potential.”
• “We have been a good partner with authorities. We believe that the protection of Intellectual Property rights plays a big role, we wouldn’t have had the vaccines so quickly without it.”
• “The power of collaboration is a key learning from this pandemic.”

Sam Proesmans

• “As member states we should have some self reflection: What are we best at and how we can contribute to HERA?”  
• “We need to coordinate across borders on the healthcare response. A better coordination on all levels will be beneficial to all member states.”

Elena Bonfiglioli

• “Our main goals should be to continue thinking on transparency for vaccine planning, to give clarity of what’s happening, and to provide a real time response to the citizens’ demands. We need to share sequencing data at European level.”
• “We need a stronger collaboration with the authorities and we need to support research with stronger computing capabilities. We should not let our guard down.”
• “Is the technology for clinical trials there? Yes it is as well as the governance. But we need collaborative relations with the authorities.”
• “We need to make sure to invest in the resilience of the health system. We need to build something that will equip our response better and faster as we go forward.”