(Photo: © Elke Brochhagen, City of Essen) Advertisement
Essen. The Corona pandemic has made it clear that a pandemic crisis can pose major challenges to society, the health system and the city administration. Although the city of Essen was able to cope well with the past Corona pandemic, it became clear that a more sophisticated pandemic plan is needed for future pandemics. For this reason, a pandemic task force consisting of scientists, a doctor and an administrative employee was set up in the health department. The pandemic task force is primarily intended to create a sustainable, as comprehensive as possible and dynamically evolving pandemic plan for the city of Essen. To this end, it is analyzing which experiences from the past will be valuable in combating and containing future pandemics. During the Corona pandemic, the Lower Health Authority Situation Center (LZ UGB) and the Health Department were already able to gain a lot of important experience, which was and is being evaluated in a first step and serves as the basis for the modular pandemic plan. The Committee for Social Affairs, Labor, Health and Integration was informed of this today (September 17).
Preparatory steps for drawing up the pandemic plan
First of all, there will be a systematic evaluation and further development of proven procedures and structures. To this end, various projects to evaluate the pandemic are being initiated and supported. For example, valuable insights from the perspective of the workforce were gained as part of an evaluation of the experiences of all LZ UGB employees. Initial results have already influenced the planned structures and processes. A second evaluation project, which is already underway, is aimed at public institutions that have worked intensively with LZ UGB during the past pandemic. In a first round, all 17 hospitals and around 100 senior care facilities were asked to share their views on the collaboration. A similar evaluation project is aimed at all of the approximately 470 Essen schools and daycare centers and their experiences.
There is also a special focus on digitization. Solutions used during the pandemic are being further developed and new ones are being tested. The pandemic task force is also participating in the tender for a new overall software solution as part of the digitization of the health department of the city of Essen. In addition, the employees, together with other health departments, are supporting the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) in the development of the new core application for infection protection in health departments called EMIGA (Electronic Reporting and Information System for Health Departments).
Preparation for different pathogens
Since it is not possible to predict when a new pandemic with which pathogens will emerge, the pandemic plan must take into account various pathogen scenarios. In order to compile a sensible selection of such scenarios, the plan includes diseases such as SARS and MERS, parasite-transmitted diseases such as Crimean-Congo fever and Zika fever, but also tropical diseases such as Ebola, as these are considered by the World Health Organization (WHO) to be particularly relevant in the context of pandemics. In addition, diseases are also taken into account which, according to the assessment of the health authority and external experts, could be a potential trigger for an exceptional health situation in the city of Essen.
In order to be optimally prepared in possible crisis situations, the health department accesses a variety of sources such as epidemiological reports from the RKI, scientific articles, wastewater data, etc.
Expansion of the core plan into a pandemic plan
The health department is currently drawing up a core plan (K-Plan) at short notice. This contains the basic planning for the event of a new pandemic, regardless of the pathogen, and enables the city to act quickly. It contains the necessary measures to make the relevant preparations in the corresponding phases of the spread.
Based on the experiences of the past pandemic, the K-Plan contains the following measures:
- Measures related to the respective pandemic phases
- Structure and processes of a situation centre to be established in an emergency, including management and coordination
- Cooperation with important internal city interfaces
- Operational and personnel planning
- Measures to provide technical equipment and software
The K-Plan is expected to be available from the end of 2024 and is to be expanded modularly to form a comprehensive pandemic plan by the end of the third quarter of 2025. The most significant addition to the K-Plan will be made from mid-2025 with the addition of selected pathogen scenarios. In a first step, the most relevant possible pandemic pathogens at the time will be considered and measures will be developed that are to be considered specifically for the respective scenario. The pandemic plan will then be continuously expanded to include new pathogen scenarios as required, and continuously tested, evaluated and further developed.
Conclusion
As part of inter-municipal cooperation, other municipalities are already showing interest in Essen’s approach. In October 2024, the measures and plans taken so far will therefore be presented at an event organized by the German Institute for Urban Affairs. It is becoming apparent that Essen will take a pioneering role in the future with regard to how the public health service will prepare for pandemic events in the future.
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