Three years after the end of the Covid emergency, Italy's pandemic plan arrives

More than six years after the discovery in Italia of the first patient struck by the Covid pandemic on 21 February 2020, and almost three years after the WHO declared the end of the emergency in May 2023, Italia is finally equipping itself against possible future emergencies by updating the pandemic plan that was approved today in the State-Regions Conference and contains measures for prevention, epidemiological surveillance, clinical management, and health logistics of supply chains. The resources to finance it are contained in last year's budget law

 After a long discussion, including with the Governors, the green light has finally come from the State-Regions Conference for the new 2025-2029 pandemic plan. The Plan has also been approved because, according to information, the requests and conditions put forward by the Regions have been accepted, which had asked to amend the legislation in force regarding personnel in the health sector, envisaging that the resources for strengthening regional governance and the activities of the Prevention Departments can also be used to recruit personnel, as an exception to the expenditure limits currently envisaged: But also to intervene in the legislation to ensure that the Regions with special statutes and the Autonomous Provinces can access the allocation of any additional state resources allocated to the implementation of the Plan, in view of the national relevance of the health protection objectives.

In the new document there will be a change of approach compared to the previous Plan: in fact, there will be a shift from a plan referring only to the influenza pandemic to a plan that will be extended to all pandemics from pathogens that have a respiratory transmission. As the undersecretary for Health Marcello Gemmato stressed in recent days, 'the Plan incorporates European and international regulatory developments and the evidence that has emerged from recent health emergencies, with particular regard to decision-making timeliness, the interoperability of information systems, and the adequacy of strategic stocks, while respecting the financial resources already allocated'. In this context, Gemmato also highlighted, "stockpile management is changing substantially, moving from a preparedness and response plan referring only to pandemic influenza to a plan extended to pandemics from respiratory-transmitted pathogens, according to a multi-pathogen approach. To date, the organisation and coordination of preparedness and response to infectious emergencies, and in particular to possible influenza pandemics, was based on the model defined in PanFlu 2021-2023.

The plan has been at the centre of a long dispute between the Ministry and the Regions, in which the Ministry of the Economy was also involved: the last draft of the plan - a document of more than 300 pages - dates back to last summer, to which was also added a letter last January from the State's General Accounting Office, in which the economic coverage of the planned measures was being scrutinised. Covers that must be found: in particular, the plan is financed with important resources from last year's budget manoeuvre, which has already earmarked 50 million for 2025, 150 million for 2026 and 300 million annually from 2027. For infectivologist Matteo Bassetti 'the most important thing is not mentioned in the new plan: where to get drugs and vaccines quickly. If a new pandemic emergency broke out today, Italia would be behind the rest of the world. This happens when ideology overtakes science and international collaboration. The lesson of Covid has been completely forgotten'.