The coronavirus pandemic has led to a global surge in demand for personal protective equipment, medical products and therapeutics used in intensive care units (ICU). To facilitate the timely availability of the medical supplies needed to fight the virus, save lives and overcome the public health crisis in the European Union, the Commission has created the COVID-19 Clearing House for medical equipment, which started operating on 1 April 2020 for a period of six months.
Matching demand with supply for medical equipment
The Clearing House worked closely with national authorities across the EU, manufacturers and other stakeholders, to help Member States source available supplies to match their needs.
It served as a platform for dialogue and sharing of information with Member States’ representatives in the areas of health and economics on the demand and supply of medical equipment at EU level and on means to overcome shortages and build capacity. Through dialogue with industry representatives, the Clearing House pooled and supported the exchange of information on evolving demand and supply patterns for key medical products.
The Clearing House also provided Member States with support tools, including an information exchange platform where they could present their short, medium and longer-term needs for medical equipment and could find supply offers from companies.
The Clearing House monitored imports, export restrictions put in place by third countries, production capacity, and supply chains, including transport and logistics bottlenecks. It also helped foresee and resolve blockages due to regulatory or technical reasons. The Clearing House also contributed to the monitoring of the export authorisation requirement for personal protective equipment leaving the European Union that was introduced temporarily by the Commission from 15 March until 25 May 2020.
All this helped identify where efforts should focus to accompany each phase of the Joint European Roadmap towards the lifting of COVID-19 containment measures and to increase preparedness for future outbreaks or possible further waves of the virus, in line with the Commission’s Communication on short-term EU health preparedness for future COVID-19 outbreaks.
The Clearing House brought together expertise from the various departments in the European Commission that are involved in the fight against COVID-19. The Clearing House was organised in five product-related clusters: personal protection equipment, ventilators, other medical and hospital supplies, test materials, and ICU therapeutics and vaccines.
The Clearing House complemented the Commission’s work on joint procurement and stockpiling of medical equipment via rescEU. It did not organise joint procurement, nor does it directly match individual demand and supply. Its role was to provide support, tools and critical information to facilitate, anticipate and accelerate the availability of the medical supplies needed to tackle the virus.
The countries of the European Economic Area (Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway), Switzerland and the United Kingdom were associated in the work of the Clearing House.
The matchmaking platform
The matchmaking platform was an online information collection tool where Member States could indicate their expected needs for medical products, and where companies producing and supplying these products could upload the details of their respective offers. The operation of the platform is described in more detail in this presentation. Companies interested in uploading a supply offer could fill a form on the Commission matchmaking platform.
Meetings with Member States and associated countries
The Clearing House organised regular meetings with representatives of the Member States and associated countries. These meetings provided a structure for pooling and sharing information. Thematic meetings allowed a more in-depth exchange of views and insights on evolving priority areas.
Thematic meeting on testing
Testing for COVID-19 enables the identification of infected individuals and their isolation to prevent the spread of the virus while tracking and tracing activities are conducted to check whether other individuals were infected.
Appropriate testing strategies and sufficient testing capacity therefore constitute one of the most crucial aspect for preparedness and response to COVID-19. However, over the first months of the pandemic, Europe had been suffering from shortages of tests and testing materials, trained laboratory personnel and for some supplies of laboratory equipment.
The Clearing House organised a meeting on testing strategies and on current and planned capacity in Europe on 28 May 2020. Ahead of the meeting, a Member States and associated countries contributed to a survey on the topic, leading to some useful key insights.
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control presented its thinking on contact tracing. The Joint Research Centre presented its database of COVID-19 in-vitro diagnostic devices and test methods.
Thematic meeting on ventilators
The COVID-19 pandemic outbreak has revealed that mechanical ventilators are crucial in the clinical management of COVID-19 patients and that they can be in shortage due to exponential short-term demand. Even though industry quickly increased production, this was not sufficient to meet the very high demand during the peak of the crisis.
On 29 June 2020, the Clearing House therefore organised a meeting on the lessons learnt and preparedness on mechanical ventilators in Europe to help prepare for a possible resurgence of COVID-19. Attached are some key insights (meeting report) on ventilators.
Some lessons learnt on the use of ventilators in intensive care unit settings were presented from the side of the clinicians by the European Society of Intensive Care Medicines (ESICM): ventilators save lives, but they must be properly used by qualified and specialised healthcare staff. Spain shared their experiences (1 and 2) in addressing increased needs for ventilators and enhancing the manufacturing capacity.
The Commission has worked to help Member States and associated countries to obtain the necessary ventilators through various instruments, notably the Joint Procurement Agreement and rescEU.
Ramping-up of production
The COVID-19 pandemic outbreak led to several shortages in essential products and triggered the need to substantially increase production of some types of equipment.
At the meeting of 13 May on ramping up production of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), the vast majority of Member States explained that they are monitoring their supply of medical equipment and are reaching out proactively to businesses to understand the current supply situation and see how to increase production. Estonia and Italy shared their experience and best practices.
A follow-up meeting on 19 May explored existing supply and expected increase of production for medical equipment, including obstacles and bottlenecks more in depth. Bulgaria presented their information tool for businesses with guidance and links to all Government anti-crisis measures to address the economic impact of COVID-19. Belgium presented the platform organised by Enterprise Europe Network Flanders for match-matching and sharing of useful information and support measures.
Other useful links:
- Additional information can be found on the Commission’s coronavirus response in the area of public health
- Communication on short-term EU health preparedness for future COVID-19 outbreaks
- Emergency Support Instrument for coronavirus crisis response (ESI)
- Joint procurement of medical countermeasures
- European Medicines Agency
- European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control
- COVID-19 In Vitro Diagnostic Devices and Test Methods Database’: https://covid-19-diagnostics.jrc.ec.europa.eu/
Facilitating the capacity increase of medical equipment
Medical equipment is normally assessed and certified by a notified body at national level. At the peak of the crisis, given the shortages of essential medical supplies, the Commission considered it crucial to find ways to facilitate this process.
In line with the Joint European Roadmap towards the lifting of COVID-19 containment measures, the Commission drew up, in agreement with Member States, a priority products list for notified bodies and shared information on the availability and capacity of conformity assessment bodies with market operators. Two surveys of the notified bodies were conducted. This helped companies to put some COVID-19 related products quickly on the market.
Notified bodies – List of essential equipment
In the Joint European Roadmap towards lifting Covid-19 containment measures adopted on 15 April 2020, the Commission called on notified bodies to prioritise essential medical equipment in the fight against COVID-19, based on a list to be agreed with Member States. The list of essential medical equipment can be found below:
Notified bodies – Availability and capacity
Moreover, the Commission committed to provide information on the availability and capacity of conformity assessment bodies and to share it with market operators. In this context, the Commission conducted surveys with notified bodies in charge of the certification of COVID-19 related medical devices, in vitro diagnostic medical devices and protective personal equipment. The below documents provide the findings of these surveys: