PANDEM-2 Plenary Meeting: April 2023

Galway, Ireland

The PANDEM-2 project’s seventh plenary meeting took place in Galway, Ireland last month hosted by project coordinators, the University of Galway. The meeting was attended by all members of the project’s consortium consisting of 19 European partners from various sectors including IT, technology, research and public health as well as the project’s Advisory Board members including the World Health Organisation (WHO), the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the American Red Cross.

PANDEM-2 was delighted to have Dr Anders Tegnell, former state epidemiologist for the Public Health Agency in Sweden whose extensive experience leading different Swedish government agencies in the field of public health, disease control and preparedness for health threats brought a first-hand expert insight to the development of the PANDEM-2 tools and trainings for pandemic preparedness. Dr Tegnell delivered presentation on Sweden’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic which you can view here.

 

Opening with an address from University of Galway President, Ciarán Ó hOgartaigh and Martin O’Donnell, Dean of the School of Medicine at the university, the discussions that followed across the two-day event focused on the project’s key outputs including the PANDEM-2 Dashboard, Pandem-Source, simulation exercises and pandemic communications resources and training. With the project’s end-users RKI, RIVM and THL also in attendance, these partners shared their experiences of the Covid-19 pandemic, which the WHO recently declared ‘over’ as a global health emergency. This helped identify gaps and areas where the PANDEM-2 tools can address their needs as pandemic managers and integrate with their existing ways of working.

Finally, partners also shared their latest status updates on the work of the project. As PANDEM-2 enters its final months with the project concluding in July, partners are working to finalise the project’s toolkits and deliver them to the EU’s pandemic managers for better preparedness, response and collaboration across Member States. Stay tuned across our social media channels, website and newsletter for the official launch of the PANDEM-2 tools and training for pandemic management.

Next, the project looks ahead to its Final Conference in Brussels next month with fellow H2020 projects, eNotice and PROACTIVE.

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Photos by Aengus McMahon.