Pedro Gullóngeneral director of public health at the Ministry of Health, has confirmed that the State Public Health Agency and preparation for future pandemics are among the ministry’s priorities in legislative matters. Gullón has declared that the agency is not only for pandemics, although its task will also be to monitor them. The Ministry of Health thus places the creation of the State Public Health Agency at the top of its political agenda.
The idea of creating said State Agency was generated with the agreement of the Socialist and Popular groups in Congress in 2021. The conclusions of the health subcommittee constituted by the pandemic, presented its list of actions that included the creation of the Agency in June 2023, a month after the declaration by the WHO of the end of the state of alert decreed in January 2020.
The various elections held in Spain and the priorities have until now relegated issues that are important, not only the creation of the agency but also a regulatory text for preparedness and response to pandemics.
Vocation to endure
The Law that will regulate the Agency yes you will have to go through more procedures parliamentarians than other legislative texts. This will allow it to have solid support and be a law that has vocation to endure, as Pedro Gullón himself has indicated. This involves an intense dialogue with the parliamentary groups about what the Agency should be like and its tasks, which Gullón has made clear he will promote and this is his wish. It is not only a pandemic agency, but it is an agency that will be in charge of monitoring pandemics, among other issues. Vaccination, other public health issues or social determinants of health (SDH) will also be the focus of action.
Given the little interest of the independence movement Together by a State Agency, it is foreseeable that the Popular Parliamentary Group will be one of the groups with which the Government and the ministry must dialogue in the search for common scenarios. In fact, in the process of selecting a headquarters for the Agency, it could fall on Andalusia, Aragon or Castilla y Leónnominated to host the headquarters and governed by the PP. He Ministry of Territorial Policy will decide on the venue.
Procedure
The process for the creation and implementation of the State Public Health Agency will begin with the announced presentation at the health commissionthen its vote in said commission in a few weeks (after successive delays in the year), thus moving to another vote in the plenary session of Congress and its referral to Senate.
The relevance of the matter should allow the optimistic term of summer 2025 that Gullón occurs. This should be the case with the political will of the parliamentary groups and the capacity for dialogue that they all show. It is important to have, without further delay, a State Agency because emergencies accumulate. Organizing and analyzing the impact of DSS or carrying out timely “One Health” monitoring of Avian Flu is relevant as well as urgent. It should not be forgotten that the H5N1 avian flu pandemic began in 2021 with outbreaks in wild and poultry birds, and is currently affecting numerous countries. The American CDC sees no clear signs of remission at this time.
Deadlines
If everything continues as it should, we will have the first vote in the plenary session of Congress. And if there is agreement broad The Senate will not cause any delay, nor should it veto the Law and extend the process for two months. If Congress approves the text, it is foreseeable that it will not be with the votes of Together and that implies the agreement of the Popular Parliamentary Group, which should facilitate its passage through the Senate.
Statutes
After 6 months after the approval of the bill, the Agency statutes approved, since without statutes it will not be able to function: defining powers, human resources and conditions, choosing the headquarters or management of the agency, all matters that must obtain prior parliamentary agreement.
Regulation for pandemics
But in parallel, greater awareness of future pandemics has its share of attention from the Ministry of Health. He Senate has shown interest in future pandemics and the necessary preparation. In April, a meeting in the Senate in which the Secretary of State participated, Javier Padillaclarified his vision and priorities regarding future pandemics.
The announcement of this “pandemic preparation and response” regulation has now been recalled by Pedro Gullón. Even without defining said text, it would be a complement that could provide the necessary architecture of the health system to face future pandemics. The Secretary of State has already explained in the Senate that it is necessary to specify self-management in cases of pandemic emergencies as the “only possible option.” He also added that “responding to that capacity of self-management It is one of our mandates.”
Other topics mentioned by Padilla in his speech last April in the Upper House were: redefining competencies professionals in the face of new needs, the development of health information systems or the need for a more robust health system, but also “a healthier society in general terms and, for that, they are necessary policies that act for the well-being of the population“, Padilla concluded.
Javier Padilla was no stranger to the innovation that brought the response to the last pandemic. He pointed out that no one thought that a year after the pandemic it would be possible to have “several vaccines effective, efficient and efficient” and that these were going to “open a new generation of medicines and health products“.
Without a doubt, a new regulation that orders and plans how to act in the face of future pandemics would be an unquestionable achievement attributable to both its promoters and those who facilitate it, prioritizing the interest of society.