Moving forward with EU4Health: first annual work programme worth €312 million adopted

As of today, EU4Health will fund more modern and resilient health systems, interventions to shore up our preparedness against health crises and more decisive EU action in the fight against cancer. The first annual work programme of EU4Health will provide €312 million for crisis preparedness, disease prevention, health systems and the healthcare workforce, and digitalisation. Funded projects will cover disease surveillance, preventing shortages of medicines, prevention, early detection, diagnosis and treatment of cancer, stronger European Reference Networks for rare diseases, testing the resilience of health systems, and preparing a European Health Data Space, amongst others. Stella Kyriakides, Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, said: “Today, we start an unprecedented investment programme for health in the EU. The first-ever EU4Health work programme starts paving the way towards a strong European Health Union. We will address the lessons learnt during the COVID-19 pandemic by investing in crisis preparedness. We will rebuild better, stronger and more resilient health systems that are more digital and have a trained and skilled workforce. And we will work to reduce the impact of cancer by investing in actions presented in Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan.”  The programme will be managed by the European Commission and the Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA).