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The state of preparedness for a pandemic, according to the director of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, isn't very good in Europe.
They need another 2 or 3 years to become `better prepared'.
Europe warned on flu pandemic planning
By Andrew Jack in London
Updated: 11 minutes ago
Europe needs at least two more years to be prepared adequately for a pandemic flu outbreak in humans, according to the head of the European Union agency in charge of tackling infectious disease.
In an interview with the FT, Zsuzsanna Jakab, director of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, said it would take two to three years to be "much better prepared to respond", even if the current political momentum could be maintained.
Speaking ahead of the launch of a report by her agency analysing pandemic planning across the EU, she warned that countries still needed to do much more to prepare for pressures beyond their health systems and to step up sharply co-operation with each other.
She said countries needed to get their written national plans operational so they worked at the local level; and ensure plans between and within countries worked in a co-ordinated fashion.
"There are certain issues that cannot be solved by one country, and they have to work together across borders," she said, stressing she wanted to strengthen collaboration with the EU's close neighbours – including with Turkey, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and Russia – in an effort to prepare for a pandemic.
Ms Jakab said the UK, France and Germany, as well as Slovenia and the Nordic countries, were better prepared, while EU accession states in central and eastern Europe presented "a bigger challenge".
However, she said no European country had yet published a pandemic plan across all government dep-artments, with most still focused on the health system, while only 14 had undertaken joint work with neighbouring countries.
