Members of the EP Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety discuss the HERA Incubator - Anticipating the threat of COVID-19 variants. Opening statement by Commission. This transcription speech is the result of an automatic process. Check against delivery.

Brussels

statement

meeting

Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety

healthcare safety (T)

Coronavirus outbreak (T)

vaccination strategy (T)

DELSAUX, Pierre (FR)

HERA Incubator - Anticipating the threat of COVID-19 variants: Opening statement by Pierre DELSAUX, Deputy Director General DG SANTE, European Commission

https://api.multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/documents/20125/15402037/I203266Chapters%5BSD-EN%5D.srt

SOUNDBITE (Original), Pascal CANFIN (Renew, FR), So we move to the agenda item number five, which is the communication from the Commission to the Parliament Council about HERA incubators. So I will give the floor first to the deputy director general Pierre Delsaux from DG Sante to make a presentation that will not duplicate what we have already heard so far. And then to the coordinators and to the Members. Floor is yours.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Pierre DELSAUX, Deputy Director General DG SANTE, European Commission, Thank you Mr. President, don't be afraid. I will be short. And I know I don't need to repeat everything which has been said before. So we try to focus on a certain number of points. Thank you very much for the invitation.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Pierre DELSAUX, Deputy Director General DG SANTE, European Commission, As you mentioned, we have this communication is creating the so-called HERA incubator. What's the objective, as we have said, is basically to be ready to fight a new variant of concern and to make sure that we get the vaccines needed for our population. So that's the objective.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Pierre DELSAUX, Deputy Director General DG SANTE, European Commission, And what we want - we don't want at this stage not to create a new authority, but simply to create a partnership between all stakeholders, all parties, to make sure that we are ready in time. And that could be also preparation for HERA.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Pierre DELSAUX, Deputy Director General DG SANTE, European Commission, Second message, what do we want to do? We want to look at this problem from holistic approach, so from end to end, starting with the sequencing, detecting the variants of concern, until the production.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Pierre DELSAUX, Deputy Director General DG SANTE, European Commission, So not working on this in isolation, but trying to connect the dots because we believe it's important that we have this global vision. Now, if I look at the different measures that we propose, first of all, it has already been discussed [...] , is a question of detecting the new variant of concerns.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Pierre DELSAUX, Deputy Director General DG SANTE, European Commission, Actually, now we propose to put on the table 200 million or so more than the 75 million which have been foreseen as a communication. So we want to increase the amount of budget which is allocated for this for this task.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Pierre DELSAUX, Deputy Director General DG SANTE, European Commission, And if you look at the [...] of the money, again, not the clear [...], but we would be looking at three aspects: sequencing, improving the sequencing like it has been discussing the previous panel.;.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Pierre DELSAUX, Deputy Director General DG SANTE, European Commission, Second element, which I believe is important, we need also to look at this year and to see whether we can develop or purchase tests PCR, which are able to detect the variant because we believe it's a very important element.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Pierre DELSAUX, Deputy Director General DG SANTE, European Commission, And last aspect is a question of wastewater monitoring, which could be also a very good tool actually, to detect possible variants and possible crisis. So we want also to invest some money in wastewater monitoring.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Pierre DELSAUX, Deputy Director General DG SANTE, European Commission, Second element research and development, which is of course important when you have detected the variants. Research and development we want to monopolise one hundred and fifty million euro out of Horizon 2020 in the current budget and out of Horizon Europe on basically how to do research and development to better address what we do with variants of concern.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Pierre DELSAUX, Deputy Director General DG SANTE, European Commission, So this money will be invested as soon as possible meaning already of now for the next step. Next element, which also has not been mentioned so far, but which also is something which I believe is important, we have created a clinical trial network in Europe with close to 200 partners in Europe.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Pierre DELSAUX, Deputy Director General DG SANTE, European Commission, And we believe this is extremely important because so far it's not the case and it would help to facilitate, you know, the testing in Europe and also the link with the world, which has been done by EMA, because that's you know, it's easier, of course, to have a connexion when the testing is made in Europe.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Pierre DELSAUX, Deputy Director General DG SANTE, European Commission, This is a reality. It has started. And so we are investing money in this because we believe it's an important one aspect. Also, we want to use this network also for testing children and doing things because children have been so far left out of, you know, because that's we believe it's important that we work also on that question at this stage.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Pierre DELSAUX, Deputy Director General DG SANTE, European Commission, So the next element, I would say, of the end to end process, the next one is you already mentioned it is a question of fast track approval of vaccines, of modified vaccines, which I know it's a very important element in that is already mentioned, the way they want to accompany the process and to make sure actually they are part of the process and get the data as soon as possible to to facilitate the process.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Pierre DELSAUX, Deputy Director General DG SANTE, European Commission, And I know don't ask me the question. You are waiting for this delegated act. I know you are ready and very thank you very much for this for being ready. I hope the Commission would be ready in time. We are doing our best and I have again transmitted the message to the Berlaymont to make sure that you are waiting for us.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Pierre DELSAUX, Deputy Director General DG SANTE, European Commission, So certainly you are not to be blaming this. I fully understand the situation in which you are. It's our responsibility and not your responsibility.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Pierre DELSAUX, Deputy Director General DG SANTE, European Commission, Last element, of course, and which is a very important one. Once we have done, you know, detect a variant of concern, one we have developed the research and so on and so on. We need, of course, to make sure that we have enough production of vaccine in Europe and that because that's something which would be extremely important and we need to anticipate this.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Pierre DELSAUX, Deputy Director General DG SANTE, European Commission, So, of course, the task force, which is being led by Mr. Breton, is important in this context, because, of course, the more capabilities within Europe, the more possibilities we have also to produce a new vaccines I would say.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Pierre DELSAUX, Deputy Director General DG SANTE, European Commission, One aspect also, which also an important tool is the APA's advance purchase agreement we have then. So we might need to use the APAs. But to be clear also and that's part of the communication, one lesson we have learnt from the previous APA is the fact that before finalising an APA, it's important that we have some kind of guarantee that there will be enough production capabilities from these producers.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Pierre DELSAUX, Deputy Director General DG SANTE, European Commission, And again, I'm not you know, it's just something which we need to work on because we believe that something which is very important. So I would stop here on HERA incubators because, again, I don't need to be too long on this.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Pierre DELSAUX, Deputy Director General DG SANTE, European Commission, One aspect of course, HERA incubators could also be a precursor to help us to understand how to shape HERA, which will be, of course, the next phase. But of course, what we will ever, you know, a legislative proposal which would be discussed with you. I stop you. Thank you very much.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Pascal CANFIN (Renew, FR), Thank you very much. Apparently, we haven't checked in half the capacity of delivering from some laboratories like AstraZeneca when signing.