Development of a strategy and action plan on health emergency preparedness, response, and resilience in the WHO European Region (Preparedness 2.0)
The WHO Regional Office for Europe has initiated a Member State-driven process for consultation towards the development of a new regional strategy and action plan to strengthen health emergency preparedness, response, and resilience in the WHO European Region (Preparedness 2.0). This renewed focus on strengthening health security capacities in the WHO European Region will be aligned with relevant strategies and ongoing processes and work streams on strengthening the health security architecture at all levels.
Preparedness 2.0 will be informed by and aligned with the multiple ongoing processes at global and regional level. These include, but are not limited to, the Health Emergency Preparedness, Response and Resilience framework; the Working Group on Amendments to the International Health Regulations (2005); the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body to draft and negotiate a WHO convention, agreements or other intentional instruments on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response; the WHO/Europe COVID-19 Transition Plan; One Health Quadripartite Joint Plan of Action 2022–2026; Pan-European Commission on Health and Sustainable Development; and the European Union’s adoption of Regulation (EU) 2022/2371 on serious cross-border threats to health and repealing Decision No 1082/2013/EU.
Priority areas for Preparedness 2.0
Preparedness 2.0 will support countries in enhancing capacities enabling agile health systems to manage the “dual track”, entailing the maintenance of essential health services while effectively managing the emergency response. Some of the other identified core elements of Preparedness 2.0 are described below.
- Governance and leadership for health emergencies: ensuring that effective multisector coordination, evidence-based decision-making, effective budgeting and timely recourse allocation, clear communication and accountability frameworks are in place for preparing for and responding to health emergencies.
- Collaborative surveillance: strengthening and integrating event-based collaborative surveillance systems to routine respiratory and all-hazards systems, ensuring a range of operational public health surveillance functions, enhanced data and pathogen sharing, increasing laboratory capacity, and increasing country risk assessment ability.
- Community protection: continuing to support countries in their endeavour to build and strengthen their multihazard risk communication, community engagement and infodemic management capacity, paving the way for the right structures, systems, and skills to be established and implemented.
- Strategies for strengthening capacities for border health and points of entry, mass gatherings, and implementing public health and social measures during health emergencies.
- Safe and scalable care: supporting the building of resilient health systems that have the resources and capacity to reorganize and deploy existing resources in response to increased demands imposed by health emergencies with agility and flexibility, while maintaining essential health services, as well as protecting and supporting health workers and patients.
- Access to countermeasures: ensuring that preparedness efforts centre on fast-tracked research and development, with pre-negotiated benefit-sharing agreements and appropriate financing and regulatory instruments, scalable manufacturing platforms and technology transfer agreements; and emergency supply chains to enable equitable access.
- Emergency coordination: ensuring a multisectoral approach including capacity building and planning through national action plans, such as the National Action Plan for Health Security, and building a strong European health emergency corps.
Overall, the strategic aim of Preparedness 2.0 and its strategy and action plan on health emergency preparedness, response, and resilience in the WHO European Region is to support Member States in the Region to be aligned with ongoing development and outcomes in the changing global health security architecture, as well as develop and/or adjust their national health security strategies and actions plans. WHO and our partners are ready to support the implementation of relevant actions at national level to strengthen context-specific capacities for better prepared and resilient health systems for future public health threats and emergencies, leaving no one behind.