Webinar: Are We Ready for the Next Cross-Border Health Crisis?

On a global scale, infectious disease epidemics are occurring more often, and spreading faster and further than ever. Threats to public health do not stop at national borders, as shown by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Diseases can spread rapidly across borders through travel, trade in human and animal food, insects and other disease carriers.

What can be done to ensure that Europe is ready for the next pandemic or bioterrorism threat? How can we effectively set up strategic crisis management, including foresight and risk monitoring in the public health sector? What are the gaps in coordination and unclear competences at different governance levels, and how can they be solved? Is the ‘one health’ approach the right path for Europe? Are there any good examples we can learn from?

Three recently published reports will give the impulse to this conversation:

• SAPEA Evidence Review Report “Strategic crisis management in the EU”
• Scientific opinion from the Group of Chief Scientific Advisors to the European Commission “Strategic crisis management in the EU”.
• Statement from the European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies “Values in times of crisis: Strategic crisis management in the EU”.