The European Union and the United States join forces in the health field. At the end of a meeting in Brussels, the EU Commissioner for Health, Stella Kyriakides, and the secretary of the US Department of Health, Xavier Becerra, launched the first joint task force to consolidate cooperation in the fight against cancer, face together the threats for global health such as future pandemics, avian flu, Marburg disease and antimicrobial resistance, and strengthen the healthcare architecture. Technical working groups on these priority areas will soon be set up, said Kyriakides and Becerra.
The fight against cancer is the main shared health challenge on both sides of the Atlantic. The primary objective, highlighted by Brussels in a note, is “to improve prevention, detection and assistance for all those affected” by cancer. For this reason, there will be two working groups on this front: one on childhood cancer and the other on lung cancer within the framework of the European plan to fight cancer and the US Cancer Moonshot programme.
As regards cooperation against global health threats and strengthening the health architecture, Brussels and Washington underline the importance of “improving the understanding of post-Covid conditions and their impact on health, societies and economies”, and assure improved cooperation between the European Authority for Health Emergency Preparedness and Response (HERA) and the US Department of Health‘s Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR), as well as joint action to secure supplies safe and vaccination programmes. Both sides then reiterate their strong commitment to “a positive outcome of the negotiations for a global agreement on pandemics and on changes to the international health regulation by May 2024″, also hoping for the expansion of the Pandemic Fund.
The European Commission and the Biden administration then support concrete steps towards the creation of “durable global mechanisms for access to medical countermeasures in health emergencies”, noting that “an ambitious agreement is at hand, but will require political will, creativity and attention to practical solutions”.
The EU and the US, the document continues, aim to “tackle the health challenges of girls, women and the most vulnerable”, underlining that “women’s rights are fundamental values of democracies” and represent “a result of to be proud of and to cultivate”.
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