Nordic Life Science 1
HEALTH // EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS 60 T he pandemic
plans that existed were national and did not take into account the usefulness of regional co-operation and interaction. Consequently, control plans and measures had to be developed on the fly, and national authorities were put to the test. Just six months before the start of the pandemic, the Nordic prime ministers adopted the vision for the Nordic Region to be the most sustainable and integrated region in the world by 2030. The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated that we have a long way to go before we become particularly integrated in this area. The nations ended up going it alone instead of integrating and interacting with each other. With the exception of Sweden, it became almost a competition to have the strictest measures. Borders were closed, and the trust we often boast of having in the Nordics was broken. The next health crisis, whatever it is, must be fought with the help of international interaction and co-operation. We know that there will be a health crisis caused by microbes that are resistant to treatment with antimicrobial agents. It’s a crisis that’s already emerging. All the Nordic countries are engaged in efforts to limit the use of antimicrobial agents and prevent the occurrence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) nationally. The Nordic countries’ use of antimicrobial agents is among the lowest in Europe. The Nordic countries, and Sweden in particular, have been a driving force internationally in efforts to limit the use of antimicrobial agents and prevent the development and spread of AMR. Sweden, which currently holds the EU presidency, is also pioneering research into AMR both nationally and internationally and has convened a high-level meeting on antimicrobial resistance in Stockholm in March 2023. Good on you, Sweden! Nordic parliamentarians have prioritized the fight against AMR within their work in the Nordic Council for a number of years. It has also been a priority issue within the Nordic Council of Ministers and several policy documents have been developed with the aim of stepping up joint Nordic efforts against AMR. Although Nordic co-operation has limited funds, in the last year money has been granted to two small research projects on the detection and tracking of AMR in the environment. In addition, a project will start in 2023 that gives medical and veterinary medical authorities and expert environments in the Nordic and Baltic countries the opportunity to work together on building up institutional and technical capacity to promote antimicrobial management in a one-health perspective. Essentially, both COVID-19 and AMR are international health crises. When crises of such magnitude arise, society as a whole is affected. As COVID-19 has shown, it’s not enough to tackle such crises with national measures alone. More co-operation across national borders is needed. If the Nordic Region is to become as integrated as our prime ministers have decided by 2030, we must have the courage to blur our national borders in our search for knowledge and in order to develop combative measures. It is critical that we obtain research-based knowledge quickly on which we can build our planning and combative measures. The most effective way to do this is for like-minded countries, as we are here in the Nordics, to co-operate more closely. I have advocated that the Nordic countries should Arne Flåøyen, Director, NordForsk work together to establish and contribute to a research fund to finance Nordic research projects in the field of social security and emergency preparedness. These funds can be released during crises or when there is a need to acquire new knowledge about the prevention and limitation of the consequences of supranational crises. In the event of major health crises such as pandemics and AMR, it should be possible to organize pan-Nordic research calls quickly and to finance these directly from the contingency fund. In this way, we can ensure a rapid, robust, and co-ordinated research response across the Nordic countries. NLS HEALTH // COLUMN PHOTO KURT GAASØ