EU health ministers to meet in emergency session

EU HEALTH ministers will hold an emergency meeting in Brussels on Thursday to co-ordinate their response to the swine flu outbreak.

Europe’s first case of the illness has been confirmed in Spain, where 20 people suspected of having the virus are under observation.

While the World Health Organisation has so far not issued advice about travel restrictions, EU Health Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou said she personally would try to avoid non-essential travel to the areas reported to be in the centre of the clusters, mainly Mexico.

EU health experts met over the weekend and foreign ministers discussed contingency plans for the threatened pandemic at their monthly meeting in Luxembourg.

Minister Micheál Martin said that member states are aiming for the maximum amount of co-ordination in terms of alerting one another to possible outbreaks and co-operating on treatment.

“We are going into red alert across Europe and, of course, in Ireland we are taking our own measures with the experts meeting on a daily basis,” he said.

Responding to warnings from the WHO that the swine flu was in danger of becoming a pandemic, the European Commission set in train the early warning and response mechanism within the EU.

The EU’s Health Security committee has been working with member states, the WHO and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control to assess the situation, understand how the virus is transmitted and evaluate the potential danger to people’s health.

They have also been assessing the resources needed and available to treat patients, such as vaccines and anti-virals. Stocks of Tami-flu, set aside by states to treat a bird flu outbreak, can be used against the swine flu, but work on developing a vaccine has begun.