Greater sharing of resources hospital capacity and even healthcare staff are needed to cope with pandemics in the future, according to researchers examining the public health response to coronavirus across the EU.
They have found that the level of preparedness across Europe was patchy, despite warnings for years, if not decades, from health experts that a global pandemic was likely.
While some countries had built up pandemic preparedness, stockpiles of personnel protective equipment (PPE), medicines such as anti-virals, and other vital equipment, others had very little.
"Countries that had those preparedness stocks, had trained nurses and doctors of how to respond to all kinds of different pandemics have fared better," said Professor, Gyorgy Kovacs, an expert in humanitarian logistics and supply chain management at the Hanku School of Economics, in Helsinki, Finland. "They bought themselves a lot of time early in the first wave."
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