European Commission presents Lesson learned package
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Right and important proposals to better fight future cross-border health threats like Covid-19 together / We need a real Health Union
The European Commission has today presented its so-called Lessons learned package to better tackle cross-border health threats such as Covid-19 together in the future. MEP and health policy spokesman of the largest group in the European Parliament (EPP-Christian Democrats), Dr. med. Peter Liese, expressly welcomed the proposals. "The past months have shown us that we can and must work much better together on health threats. We need a genuine European Health Union, as my group and the European Parliament called for back in the summer. The proposals are an important first step in this direction", Liese said.
The package includes a proposal for a new regulation on cross-border health threats to replace the existing directive and the possibility of declaring an EU health emergency. "This is really necessary. We relied too much on the WHO for the Covid 19 pandemic. While I greatly appreciate the work of the WHO, it must unfortunately be recognised that the WHO has also made mistakes during the pandemic. In my opinion, under pressure from China, the WHO declared the health emergency too late. It is therefore very important to have the possibility to act at European level in future similar situations", said the doctor and MEP.
Read more: European Commission presents Lesson learned package
For a European Health Union
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The EU must cooperate much stronger to fight Covid-19 and other cross-border health threats/ Cooperation on development and procurement of vaccine close to a big success
“We need a European Health Union to better fight against cross-border health threats like Covid-19,” stated Peter Liese, medical doctor and health spokesperson of the biggest political group in the European Parliament EPP (Christian Democrats) in light of the presentation of the so-called “lessons learned package” that will be presented by the European Commission on Wednesday. Liese raised the expectation that the Health Union, that has been asked for by his group (https://www.eppgroup.eu/newsroom/publications/epp-group-position-paper-on-a-european-union-for-health) and the European Parliament in July (https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-9-2020-0205_EN.pdf, will be supported by the European Commission and also by the Council of Ministers. “The Covid-19 pandemic has shown that Europe was not prepared against this kind of health threat and those who have always argued in the past that health should remain a purely national issue have been proven wrong”, says Liese.
The Commission will make three legislative proposals:
First, they will propose a regulation on cross-border health threats replacing the existing directive. “Already back in 2013, the European Parliament asked to draw the right lessons from threats that occurred at that time. It is now high time to act! Among others, we need the opportunity to declare an EU emergency situation. In the Covid-19 pandemic, we depended too much on the WHO. While I strongly value the work of WHO and I am very happy that the president-elect of the United States Joe Biden will probably revoke the decision of Donald Trump to leave this important institution, one cannot argue that the WHO did not made mistakes. I think they declared the public health emergency too late under the pressure of China, which is why it would be very important to have the possibility to act at a European level in future, similar situations”, says Liese.
Last-minute contract closure
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EU agrees with Biontech/Pfizer on delivery of 300 million vaccines doses /
Agreement is good news, but it is also good that the European Commission stayed strong / European rules must be adhered to, also from American companies
"It is very good that an agreement could be found," says the health spokesperson for the biggest group in European parliament (EPP, Christian Democrats), Dr med Peter Liese about the signature of the contract between the European Commission and the vaccine manufacturer Biontech/Pfizer. Yesterday, Biontech announced that the vaccine is 90% effective as was observed during clinical trials and that there are only very few side effects. So far, there has been no EU contract on the delivery of the vaccine, even though negotiations have been going on for months.
“It is very good that the contract can now be signed at short notice. It would have been completely inconceivable if a vaccine would have been developed in Germany with German and European funding and would then not have be available to EU citizens. The responsible people at BioNTech, with whom I have been in close contact over the past few weeks, have always agreed to this as well. In my opinion, there have been problems with Pfizer.
Covid-19 vaccine of Biontech
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Huge success for European research policy / Pandemic might be less worse this spring / EU secures hundreds of millions of vaccines / Contract will be signed shortly
The health spokesperson for the biggest group in European parliament (EPP, Christian Democrats), Dr med. Peter Liese calls the results of the third phase of the clinical trial for a corona vaccine a that has been produced by Biontech in collaboration with Pfizer “huge success for European research policy”. Biontech and Pfizer announced on Monday that, according to their analysis, 90% of test persons who received the vaccine are protected against Covid-19. They tested a total of 43,538 subjects whereas 94 cases were confirmed Covid-19 positive.
“The study is a double-blind study and it was only in the last few days that the study leaders were aware themselves who received a placebo and who received the vaccine. Significantly more Covid-19 cases emerged in the placebo group compared to the group of those who received the vaccine. That's a very good result. Of course, the data still has to be checked by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), and they will do so shortly. A team of experts at the EMA is already prepared and ready to act and the first parts of the data from phases 1 and 2 have already been evaluated. A vaccine needs to be available in Europe as soon as possible, but we insist on a safe vaccine,” said Liese. If the announcements can be confirmed, it will be a huge success for European research and innovation policy. The Biontech project is financed, among others, by the European research program Horizon 2020, supported by the financial instrument InnovFin and by the European fund for strategic investments. In addition, Biontech received money from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research", said Liese.