At the meeting of the health ministers of the 28 Member States in Valletta, Luxembourg’s Lydia Mutsch welcomed the priorities chosen by the Maltese Presidency in the field of health.
The first item on the agenda is the fight against childhood obesity in Luxembourg. Like her counterparts, the Luxembourg minister has advocated the added value of an inter-ministerial action involving all actors and starting at an early age in order to put a stop to this disease which is thought to account for 7% of health spending in member states.
"We must strengthen and expand our national efforts to reach the entire population. The European Commission and the World Health Organisation can help us in these efforts,” said Minister Mutsch.
Protecting children from marketing exposure to unhealthy products and the use of taxation measures have been advocated by a large number of stakeholders.
Ministers also expressed their political support for the Malta Declaration, which proposes a number of concrete actions at an early date in order to counteract the worrying development of the HIV / AIDS epidemic. European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety Vytenis Andriukaitis commended Luxembourg for its inclusion efforts focused on the at-risk population of drug users and cited the Abrigado Center as an example of good practice.
Minister Mutsch has launched a call to the pharmaceutical industry to bring medicines to the market at prices that guarantee adequate treatment for all concerned.
The subject of access to innovative medicines, which forms part of the discussions under the Luxembourg Presidency in relation to access to personalised medicine, brought ministers to the added value of the exchange of good practices and of voluntary cooperation agreements between Member States in order to lower the prices of new medicines.
The cooperation initiative between Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria and Luxembourg aimed at influencing the price of drugs for rare diseases was repeatedly cited as an example of good practice. "We must do everything possible to ensure that sick children have access to medicines that are tailored to their specific needs," said Minister Mutsch.
The Luxembourg Minister participated in the margins of the Council at the Socialist and Social Democrat Socialists' meeting organised by the European Social Democrats (PES) in the presence of Commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis.
The ministers expressed their support for the guarantee of children, which aims to ensure free access to health care and adequate food and housing for all children in Europe. The participants agreed to continue their work on the vision of a progressive EU health agenda to better coordinate health policies.
The meeting will be reconvened in June in Luxembourg on the sidelines of the formal Council of Ministers of Health.
Image: Christopher Fearne, Minister of Health for Malta; Lydia Mutsch; Ray Azzopardi, Malta's ambassador to Belgium, Luxembourg and NATO; Vytenis Andriukaitis, Euoprean commissioner for health and food security