Europe builds preparedness against potential health threats
Researcher - Photo © Alexander Raths - Fotolia
(BRUSSELS) - The EU moved Wednesday to bolster its capacity to respond to public health risks with a decontamination reserve and a new stockpile of equipment tailored to chemical, biological or nuclear emergencies.
Through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism, its strategic reserves of response capacities include a EUR 540.5 million rescEU strategic stockpile, established in close collaboration with the Health emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA).
The stockpile will consist of equipment and medicines, vaccines and other therapeutics to treat patients exposed to CBRN emergencies agents, as well as of rescEU decontamination reserve to provide decontamination equipment and expert response teams.
As an immediate first step, the EU has mobilised its rescEU medical reserve to procure potassium iodide tablets which can be used to protect people from the harmful effects of radiation.
Almost 3 million iodide tablets have already been delivered to Ukraine via the EU Civil Protection Mechanism, with the help of France and Spain.
Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarcic said the EU was setting up a decontamination reserve as well as a new stockpile of equipment tailored to chemical, biological or nuclear emergencies. "Our aim is to provide rapid response capabilities for our citizens if such an emergency ever occurs," he said.
People may be exposed to CBRN agents as a result of unintentional disasters (eg. a chemical plant leak, nuclear power plant incidents, the spread of an infectious disease) or intentional incidents (eg. a terrorist attack). The Commission is developing under rescEU:
- A strategic rescEU CBRN emergencies stockpile: The stockpile, which is designed withMember States, will include response equipment - such as personal protective equipment and detection, identification and monitoring devices - and medicines, vaccines and other therapeutics. The stockpile will make a crucial contribution to build CBRN resilience in the EU as it will include equipment and medicines that may be hard to manufacture in times of crisis or that may be suddenly required in larger amounts than what is available in national reserves. The CBRN stockpile is a first step towards establishing better capacities in response to nuclear power plant incidents, chemical facility emergencies, terrorist attacks or the spread of an infectious disease and many more.
- rescEU decontamination reserve: This will comprise both staff and equipment to decontaminate people, infrastructure, buildings, vehicles or critical equipment that have been exposed to CBRN agents. Upon request of the affected Member State, the rescEU decontamination reserve can be deployed. The reserve will be developed and hosted by Croatia, Germany and Spain and will be 100% EU-financed with an initial budget of €66.7 million.
EU Civil Protection Mechanism factsheet
Factsheet on the European Health Emergency preparedness and Response Authority (HERA) (europa.eu)