The EU is a major actor in crisis prevention and response, both inside the Union and globally. It is strongly committed to both health security and global health.

In addition to its role coordinating health policies inside its frontiers, the EU is a driving force behind global efforts to prevent, respond to and mitigate the effects of major health crises.

This was demonstrated by the leading role that the EU played – and its impact – in response to the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) crisis (caused by the virus A, (H5N1)), and again in response to the influenza pandemic 2009 (caused by the virus A(H1N1)). The EU helped to set up an unprecedented global partnership against HPAI, encompassing major political actors, the UN, development organisations and more than 120 nations. The Beijing conference of January 2006 was the founding event of this new mechanism of collaboration, which sees the joining of forces at global level to combat threats that know no borders.

Since its initial involvement in the response to the HPAI crisis, the EU has focused its efforts – and encouraged other actors to do so – on national and regional ownership by the beneficiaries of EU assistance, and on a long-term vision of sustainable reinforcement of public and animal health systems. Such an approach ensures that the benefits of EU cooperation are maximised: investments made around HPAI were used to tackle the influenza pandemic of 2009 and remain operational for future major health crises.

At policy level, the EU works with key partners such as the UN senior influenza coordination office to ensure attention remains focused on all emerging and re-emerging diseases, neglected zoonoses and major health risks originating at the interface between animals, humans and their various environments. This has become known as the ‘One Health’ approach.

Recent crises have demonstrated that communication on pandemic readiness remains a huge challenge for the coming years. This is particularly so in developed countries, where both health personnel and the public must acquaint themselves with a new paradigm: globalisation and other factors have created a new global health environment, meaning that the world has to again learn to live with an ‘infectious uncertainty’ and the potential worldwide impact of local crises.