PANDEM-2 – Irish Army Cooperates with EU in Important Pandemic Exercise

Several EU health and emergency response agencies met last week at the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) in Berlin for a Tabletop Exercise (TTX) to test how prepared the EU is for future pandemics.

This has been a huge milestone for PANDEM-2, the EU’s €10m pandemic preparedness and response project, which was organised and coordinated by NUI Galway.

Tabletop Exercises are interactive, simulated field exercises that examine an organisation’s emergency response. They help to test procedures, policies, and plans in the case of a future pandemic.

Participants included national public health agencies from Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Portugal, Romania and Finland – these included the Radboud University Medical Centre, a central hospital in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, alongside first responders such as the Austrian Red Cross, the Italian Red Cross, and Emergency Medical Services in Portugal.

The Irish Defence Forces recently joined the Advisory Board of PANDEM-2 and also participated in the Tabletop Exercise, bringing extensive knowledge and defence sector experience in drills and exercises as well as experience gained during the COVID-19 response to the table.

Professor Máire Connolly, Coordinator of the PANDEM-2 project, and expert in Global Health at NUI Galway said at a panel in Berlin: “This is a major milestone for the PANDEM-2 project. Tabletop Exercises are an important part of testing levels of preparedness for cross-border health emergencies.  Building a pandemic preparedness training platform for Europe incorporating the experience of leading public health and emergency response agencies will help meet our goal of improving the EU’s response to future pandemics.”

The Goals of PANDEM-2

The Tabletop Exercise’s main aim was to test national public health agencies’ response to international and cross-border health emergencies while utilising PANDEM-2 tools. Two teams of pandemic managers took part in the exercise representing two neighbouring European countries – involving public health officials, clinicians, first responders, and laboratory experts from the PANDEM-2 consortium.

The teams were made to respond to a series of simulations following cases of imported Ebola virus disease in their countries. Risk assessments and public communications were assessed for the same of emergency management of the outbreak. Biosecurity and biosafety measures were also tested, with procedures relating to patient transport and handling of clinical specimens being tested.

The PANDEM-2 team’s aim is to strengthen the EU’s response to pandemics and epidemics in the future, through development of IT systems, supported by training for pandemic managers, alongside training for first responders and other healthcare officials. A key objective is to apply lessons from different responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, both in Ireland and elsewhere in the EU.