Ireland future-proofing emerging health threats response with new appointment

Ireland’s Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly, has appointed Professor Mary Horgan to lead the creation of a new emerging health threats agency to ensure “strengthened preparedness”.

The agency will build on existing assets and infrastructure to focus on infectious diseases, pandemic preparedness, and other emerging threats to public health, a Health Ministry spokesperson explained to Euractiv.

Horgan, a professor of infectious diseases at University College Dublin (UCD) and the Mater Misericordiae Hospital, has previously served as president of the Infectious Diseases Society of Ireland and is expected to deliver her proposal to the government in six months.

She also served on the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET), led the expert advisory group on rapid testing, and chaired Ireland’s first National Research Ethics Committee.

Emerging Health Threats agency

A spokesperson for Ireland’s Department of Health told Euractiv that Horgan’s appointment is the result of a July 2021 agreement by the minister for health and the government “to establish a Public Health Reform Expert Advisory Group (PHREAG) to examine the public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic”.

The PHREAG’s report was published to the government on 6 September 2023.”

“They… also agreed to appoint an independent expert to design a dedicated, emerging health threats function, building on existing assets and infrastructure to focus on infectious diseases, pandemic preparedness, and other emerging threats to public health”.

The report concluded that Ireland performed well in response to COVID-19, highlighting the fact that the country’s excess mortality rate was among the lowest in Europe and globally.

Ongoing global surveillance

Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said the “…new agency will ensure strengthened preparedness by consolidating existing expertise across the health service together with additional external resources and expertise.”

Ireland’s Chief Medical Officer, Breda Smyth, welcomed the PHREAG report but highlighted the need to address broader public health risks when.

“In addition to COVID-19, we have seen the risk posed by other recent emerging health threats, including the emergence of Mpox in 2022, recent outbreaks of Ebola and Marburg disease internationally, and ongoing global surveillance of the evolving threat posed by avian influenza.”

Professor Mary Horgan

Against a backdrop of an ongoing WHO review of over 25 virus families and bacteria, as well as ‘Disease X’ – an unknown pathogen that could cause a severe international epidemic – Donnelly described Horgan as “a world-renowned expert in infectious disease”, whose recent work included spearheading medical and scientific education in Ireland.

She is seen as instrumental in reversing the downward trend in the uptake of HPV vaccination from 50% to 71% in one year.

Horgan’s new role will include an evaluation of Ireland’s integration with the EU’s infectious diseases coordination agency – the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).

The ECDC is responsible for assessing outbreaks of infectious diseases, such as the ongoing mpox outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It also monitors about 50 diseases and special health issues, such as antimicrobial resistance, through the EU’s epidemiological surveillance network.

The ECDC also operates the EU’s “Early Warning and Response System” (EWRS), a confidential, web-based platform owned by the European Commission, which allows EU countries to alert, share information, and coordinate responses to cross-border severe health threats.

It has been used in managing outbreaks like COVID-19, Monkeypox, and Ebola.

During the COVID-19 response, EWRS supported exchanging passenger locator form data for cross-border contact tracing.

Pandemic preparedness

The EU’s pandemic preparedness strategy involves building on a common response to COVID-19, where the EU sought to provide “objective information” about the spread of the virus, coordinating practical efforts to contain it.

Though Ireland is seen to have handled its COVID response effectively, Horgan will need to evaluate lessons learned in the context of the WHO advice that the COVID-19 pandemic remains “an acute global emergency” and that “governments face uncertainties about how to prioritise at a time when the pandemic appears to be in transition but when the risk of emergence of new variants and future surges remains real.”

Ireland needs effective partnerships to respond efficiently as a small nation with a saturated health service.

A critical partner for Ireland and a focal point for Horgan, will be the European Medicines Agency (EMA), and its ‘emerging health threats plan’, which describes how the Agency operates during an emerging health threat, to allow for a rapid and efficient response.

Horgan will also consider Ireland’s liaison with the EU’s Health Emergency Preparedness Authority (HERA).

[By Brian Maguire, edited by Vasiliki Angouridi |Euractiv.com]

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