Plans for new ‘emerging health threats’ agency to prepare for future pandemics

A State body tasked with preparing for future pandemics or other emerging health threats is to be set up under plans being drawn up by Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly.

An expert is to be appointed to plan out the shape of the agency and where it would sit within the health service.

It is expected that a report to be completed by the expert, who has not yet been selected, will examine whether the emerging health threats agency should be a standalone entity, or a new unit in the Department of Health or Health Service Executive (HSE).

One department source said the agency would have a dedicated focus of preparing for a future pandemic, in the aftermath of the disruption caused by Covid-19 in recent years, as well as an eye to improving the State’s response to other infectious diseases and potential biological threats.

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Responsibility for much of the work the planned agency would focus on currently sits between the department’s chief medical officer, the Health Protection Surveillance Centre and regional public health doctors.

The department source said the aim of the new agency would be to bring planning for future pandemics or major public health threats “under one roof”. The work to scope out the recommended shape of the agency will likely take a number of months, with the appointed expert to prepare a report for Mr Donnelly.

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An assessment of Ireland’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, led by former University College Dublin president Prof Hugh Brady, is expected to be brought to a Cabinet meeting in the next fortnight. The report was completed and submitted to the department last September and is understood to recommend reforms to the public health services.

Mr Donnelly previously said the findings of the post-pandemic review were “broadly positive” and found that the level of extra deaths recorded in the State during the crisis was “one of the lowest anywhere in the world”.

While the review examined how the State responded to the pandemic, a broader inquiry into Ireland’s handling of Covid-19 promised by the Government has not yet been set up.

Speaking in June, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said it was still the Government’s intention to establish such an inquiry this year and that it was working through the proposed terms of reference for the work.

Government figures have stressed that any inquiry should not look at apportioning blame or finding fault with individual decision-makers or bodies, and should rather be geared towards improving future responses to similar public health emergencies.