As of February, a general COVID-19 vaccination requirement will apply in Austria for all citizens over the age of 18. Parliament approved the Austrian government’s bill a few days ago with a broad majority. Pregnant women, convalescents up to 180 days after contracting the disease, and people with a medical certificate are exempt from the […]
Roberta Metsola is the new President of the European Parliament. The European People’s Party’s conservative group’s candidate was elected to the top office yesterday with a clear majority. The Maltese presented herself in campaign clips, among other things, as a champion of LGBT rights, same-sex marriage, and tolerance for different lifestyles in the EU, but […]
There is a website promoting the benefits of digital prescription. An app is also available for download and has already been downloaded tens of thousands of times. The e-prescription was to be one of the first mandatory applications in the digital healthcare system. But the Germany-wide mandatory launch failed to attract media attention a few […]
The Commission’s proposed regulation on artificial intelligence (AI Regulation) does not provide sufficient protection for the environment. This is the conclusion reached by Renew MEP Susana Solís Pérez in her draft opinion. This is to be presented in the spring to the lead committees for Internal Market and Consumer Protection and Civil Liberties, Justice, and […]
In her first State of the Union address, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced that she wanted to create a “stronger European health union“. Last year, things began to take form. The focus was on crisis prevention and response, especially the revision and expansion of the mandates of the European Center for Disease Prevention […]
It was scandals involving defective breast implants that drove the already overdue revision of current medical device legislation at the EU level. At the turn of the millennium, breast pads filled with soya oil lost their CE certificate when it emerged that they could tear or leak.In spring 2010, a second scandal involving defective breast […]
The COVID-19 variant Omicron is spreading more and more in Europe. Besides Great Britain, the German neighboring country Denmark is particularly affected. Despite vaccination rates of over 80 percent, Omicron is now the dominant variant. In other countries such as Spain, Portugal, and France, the infection figures are also rising rapidly. With the exception of […]
When the first pandemic wave hit Europe in the early 2020s, the European Union’s member states relied on border closures. Despite the realization that the virus does not stop at any national border and that border closures between EU member states are not effective, similar reactions have occurred time and again. During the third wave […]
From 2024, the EU member states are to prepare joint benefit assessments of health technologies (HTA). This means that the first joint HTA reports could be available in 2025: initially for cancer drugs, later also for drugs for rare diseases, and finally for all other drugs and medical devices. But unlike the Commission’s original proposal, […]
After being ill-prepared at the start of the COVID pandemic, the EU and member states are now looking to prepare for future health crises with a series of measures. In addition to extending the mandates of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), a new Health Emergency […]