A vaccine against the Ebola virus may be on the market by next year, European Health Commissioner Tonio Borg told Parliament’s Health Committee last night.
Giving an overview of the EU operations on Ebola, Dr Borg said it seemed that cases were becoming increasingly isolated and that the curve of infections seemed to be levelling off.
Replying to comments by Deo Debattista (PL), Dr Borg said the EU had projects under way on this deadly virus but they were still not at the stage of clinical trials, which in this emergency situation might start directly on humans.
He said Ebola dispersal was, for the EU, a low risk issue since the levels of hygiene in Europe were high.
Health Parliamentary Secretary Chris Fearne said the Ebola issue would be discussed at EU level later this week, as the bloc sought to reduce risks and provide protection for health workers should the need arise.
Turning to the sustainability of the Maltese health system, Dr Borg said that, while people were living longer, it did not follow that they were living better.
The EU opined that no health system, anywhere, was sustainable unless reformed.
Referring to the EU’s country specific recommendations for Malta, he said there were aspects similar to those in other countries, such as the need to vote more funds into prevention as this would reduce the stress on primary care. A simple reduction of two per cent from the smoking population, said Dr Borg, would divert billions of euros, not just millions, from health care into other areas of the economy.
Malta had few problems of accessibility in health care but the European Commission’s suggestions on economic resilience and effectiveness were worth discussing in detail in Malta.
The commission had also set up a group of experts offering free advice on strengthening the sustainability of health care.
Dr Borg said three areas could be of direct benefit to Malta.
There was a direct programme for health projects which has a €460 million fund.
There were also structural funds dedicated to health and from this Malta had benefited in five major projects with a global total of €65 million, the largest of which was the Oncology Centre at €49 million. The third fund was that of Research and Innovation – one of the few that actually had an increase in budget to €8 billion dedicated to health aspects.
Dr Borg said that the R&I budget was not conditioned by the size of the country and the University of Malta was exploiting this budget.
Malta has a very high level of healthy life expectancy
Malta had a very high level of healthy life expectancy, said Dr Borg, but there were also areas of concern, particularly in chronic diseases which could be prevented such as Type 2 diabetes and cancer. A summit on the prevention of chronic diseases ended with an action group working to tackle, among other things, smoking and nutrition.
Martin Seychell, deputy director general at the EU Commission on Health, said that one of the main targets of the EU was diabetes and it was identifying best practices so that they could become standard procedure.
Referring to the price of medicines, Dr Borg said that these varied widely from country to country and they were within the jurisdiction of member states.
However, France had taken the initiative to put the issue up for discussion. One of the current provisions that Malta was party to was a cross-border agreement to join in the procurement of medicines for pandemics.
Dr Fearne said that in respect of primary care, lifestyle clinics were being instituted to ensure better and healthier approaches to living and the prevention of chronic illnesses.
Community midwifery and X-ray machines were just two of the measures that had been introduced to reduce the pressure on Mater Dei Hospital in compliance with the EU’s country specific recommendations, he added.
Concluding, he thanked the health care professionals for their input in making the system work and easing in new procedures.