EU urges vigilance to avoid coronavirus second wave

Rigorous testing and tracing regimes and real-time reporting of Covid-19 cases are essential to avoid a second wave of the virus as countries ease restrictions, the European Union’s health commissioner has said.

"We cannot risk, and I'm sure you agree with me, an uncontrolled resurgence of this virus," Dr Stella Kyriakides told The Irish Times. "We have over one million cases now in the EU. We cannot lower our guard. And we are going to have to adapt to a new reality."

A Cypriot clinical psychologist and politician, Dr Kyriakides was appointed to the health and food safety portfolio under European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen in December.

She was thrust into the unprecedented position of trying to help co-ordinate the response of the 27-member states to a pandemic, which revealed the commission to be awkwardly caught between expectations of pan-European response, and the reality that powers over health and border policy are solely in the hands of member states.

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She rejects accusations that the commission was slow to react, noting that when it asked national governments whether they had sufficient supplies of protective equipment in January, they responded that they had.

“We offered to help with procurement of PPE [personal protective equipment] in January, but it was not taken up,” said Dr Kyriakides. “Possibly at that point in time, member states could not foresee the scale and the speed at which this was going to spread.”

Dr Kyriakides spoke to the Irish Times after the EU’s executive released guidelines intended to help member states to edge towards reopening borders and international travel, while managing the risk it could lead to a resurgence in cases.

Designed in co-ordination with the bloc’s disease prevention agency, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, the guidelines emphasise that rigorous testing and tracing regimes, including contact-tracing apps, should be in place so that national authorities can identify and corner new cases before they spread.

“Whether we have an upsurge cases . . . will very much depend on the way that we manage this next stage of lifting of containment measures,” said Dr Kyriakides. “There are certain criteria that have to be very robust so that we don’t have a second wave.”

When assessing whether to open up borders and ease travel, countries must examine how prevalent the disease is in the other country. For this, it is essential for national authorities to have accurate data on the level of their outbreak.

“It’s very important that member states . . . that their surveillance system themes are able to capture all individuals with symptoms compatible with Covid, and to be able to test and if necessary isolate, so that there is a very transparent picture in member states of what their epidemiological situation is,” said Dr Kyriakides.

Finding a vaccine

The European Commission led an international fundraising drive earlier this month to raise finances for the search for a vaccine and for treatments for coronavirus, gathering some €7.4 billion in pledges from world leaders to pay for research and development.

“The only way forward out of this pandemic will be after we find the vaccine, and we have the effective therapeutics, because the virus is going to be with us for a very long time,” said Dr Kyriakides.

The EU is now co-ordinating on a plan of how to prioritise the distribution of doses if a vaccine is developed, potentially starting with those most vulnerable to the disease and healthcare workers.

She admits however that whether or not a vaccine is found is “not a given”.

“One needs to look at this in a continuum,” said Dr Kyriakides. “There is no situation where suddenly everything is finished.”

The commissioner has proposed using funds from the common EU budget to increase the limited capacity of pharmaceutical laboratories to make vaccine shots. The next step is to adopt a long-term pharmaceutical strategy that would reduce dependence on international trade for vital medical supplies.

“The EU depends for production of active ingredients, and also for some medicines, on countries outside the EU,” said Dr Kyriakides. “This pandemic has highlighted some of the weaknesses that we have now in terms of medicines in Europe.”