EU steps up human flu 'preparedness'

Over the next two days Europe moves to gear-up EU readiness for a potential human flu pandemic.

Europe's governments and EU officials will seek to play down epidemic public fears linking bird flu to a potential human influenza pandemic while stressing they are ready for the worst.

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control on Wednesday publishes a human health risk assessment following the arrival of H5N1 bird flu in Europe.

The ECDC will look at risk to human health and give recommendations on the protection of people handling poultry in avian flu hit areas.

Europe’s ECDC is a new agency tasked with driving cooperation between 25 national public health authorities across the EU. 

Based in Stockholm at the Karolinska Institute the ECDC became operational in May 2005.

In Brussels, European Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou will set out a ‘simulation exercise’ to test the preparedness of EU member states to respond in a coordinated fashion to an outbreak of human flu.

The exercise will be organised by the European Commission and run before the end of the year.

Europe’s health ministers will on Thursday discuss the EU’s readiness should a form of the H5N1 virus, or another like it become, transmissible between humans sparking a flu pandemic.

Speaking on Tuesday, Kyprianou stressed that, despite a major scare, the arrival of bird flu within the EU did not increase the risks of a human influenza outbreak.

"The fact that we have avian flu in Europe now does not affect the threat of a human pandemic... it could come from the mutation of any other influenza virus," he said.

But the commissioner did note that “more than half” of the EU’s 25 countries do not have sufficient anti-viral drug stockpiles to fight a human flu pandemic.

Figures suggest that EU member states hold only ten million anti-viral jabs to cover over 450 million people — 100 million short of World Health Organisation guidelines.

On current projections by the end of 2007, there could only still 46 million doses of anti-viral drugs available, according to media reports.

Demand on pharmaceutical manufacturers currently outstrips capacity and Europe’s health ministers will look schemes to boost seasonal anti-flu jabs to free up new investment.

The important thing is that all should have enough pharmaceutical defence in this respect. This is something we will be working on with the member states,” said Kyprianou.

“I want to see if there any problems in provision, which is why we need to talk to [governments] and industry and see if there any problems in supply in terms of manufacturing capacity.”

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