Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA)
Summary
Budget
Official information source
https://commission.europa.eu/about-european-commission/departments-and-execu...Description
Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority
HERA anticipates threats and potential health crises, through intelligence gathering and building the necessary response capacities.
Responsibilities
The Health Emergency Preparedness and Response (HERA) department’s mission is to prevent, detect, and rapidly respond to health emergencies.
HERA, created in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, will anticipate threats and potential health crises, through intelligence gathering and building the necessary response capacities.
When an emergency hits, HERA will ensure the development, production and distribution of medicines, vaccines and other medical countermeasures – such as gloves and masks – that were often lacking during the first phase of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
HERA is a key pillar of the European Health Union announced by President von der Leyen in her 2021 State of the Union address and will fill a gap in the EU's health emergency response and preparedness.
HERA was launched as a new European Commission Directorate-General on 16 September 2021.
HERA carries out the Commission's policies related to:
Public health
Plans and reports
Commission work programme – overview of institution-wide deliverables for current year
Resources
HERA activities will rely on a budget of €6 billion from the current Multiannual Financial Framework for the period 2022-2027, part of which will come from the NextGenerationEU top-up.
Other EU programmes such as the Recovery and Resilience Facility, REACT-EU, Cohesion Funds and the InvestEU Progamme inside the EU, and the Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument outside the EU, will also contribute to support the resilience of health systems. Together with the above €6 billion the total support will thus amount to almost €30 billion under the next financing period and even more if we consider investments at national level and in the private sector.
Leadership and organisation
COMMISSIONER
(ACTING) DIRECTOR-GENERAL, DIRECTOR, DEPUTY HEAD OF SERVICE
