The general director of Public Health, Pedro Gullón, has announced that the State Public Health Agency (AESAP) could go to the Congressional Health Commission at the end of this month of October. In addition, he has indicated that “it will have a functional headquarters in the summer of 2025.”
“We are in the phase of reviewing the 95 amendments that we have received from the parliamentary groups, all of them very purposeful,” said Gullón. “After debating whether to accept them or not, At the end of October we will go to the Presentation of the Congress Health Commission and later to the Plenary Session of the Congress of Deputies”, Gullón announced.
“We hope to pass the first round of the Congress before the end of the year,” he stressed during his speech at the V Symposium of the Health Observatory organized by the newspaper El Español and Invertia.
The DG of Public Health has continued to explain that once the law was approved ““We have six months to prepare the statutes and thus the entire legal part of the Agency would be set up.”
Regarding the statutes, Gullón has indicated that they will be made by the Executive but it will be a participatory process with different agents such as the CCs. AA and other interested public health agents. “There will be many things to decide, but it has to be a process that is as open to dialogue as possible so that the agency is powerful and remains over time.”, he stressed.
Agency Powers
At one point in the AESAP’s powers, Gullón has assured that The Agency “does not change the powers of the State or the communities in matters of public health”. The agency continued “it will be a way to find a free and independent organization, less subject to political changes, where we can include the most technical aspects carried out in public health with a capacity for personnel and budget growth that the state administration does not have.”
Along the same lines, Gullón has continued to explain that at a time of transformation and reform of public health in the ministry and in the CCs. AA, this depends on having highly technical independent centers with flexibility of budget, personnel and action, “which is exactly what the AESAP will be.”
Within this definition of the Agency, Gullón wanted to make a fundamental point clear. “The Agency is not going to be a pandemic agency, it is going to be a public health agency that will have technical elements that will have to do with social determinants of health, non-communicable diseases and vaccinations.among other public health issues,” he stressed.
In the same vein, Gullón has assured that the Agency will also be accompanied by other packages that “will modernize public health.” “We have already launched, for example, the Public Health Surveillance RD that will serve to create new surveillance elements; of chronic diseases, of social determinants of health, environmental, infectious, vaccines, etc.,” he explained. “Well, this project will run parallel to the Agency, in fact, the AESAP will provide technical support to this type of initiatives,” he noted.
Pandemic response
At this point, and after making it clear that the Agency will not be “a pandemic agency”, Gullón has highlighted that there will be an important part that the Agency will be in charge of and that it will be in terms of preparing how we respond to health emergencies. “On this matter we are also preparing a RD together with the CCs. “AA that will really make a difference in how we respond to new emergencies,” he indicated.
“When there is a public health emergency at the national level, we will not have to start from scratch as happened in Covid-19 to coordinate the elements and agents that must act to confront this emergency.” he pointed out. “The agency itself will be able to define when and how a threat becomes a health emergency and will coordinate all the agents and elements necessary to confront it,” he concluded.
Role in DSS
Regarding the social determinants of health (SDH), Gullón has reiterated the importance of the concept of how to address these determinants. “The social determinants of health must be taken into account beyond the technical or scientific level.”. In this sense, the DG of Public Health has given a clarifying example to explain how they act and what these social determinants of health consist of: ““We must solve the fact that there is a ten-year difference in the life expectancy of two neighborhoods in the same city.”he stressed.
“Here non-health policies come into play that have to act together”, he pointed out. But for that to happen, he continued, “there must be an organization, such as the Agency, that makes evaluations of these non-health policies that impact the health of the population.”
Furthermore, in parallel, Gullón has recalled the existence of another law, that of Equity, which has been created precisely so that ministries take into account what a law can impact on people’s health. “The Agency will have a fundamental role in making the technical evaluations that other ministries must take into account before carrying out a law.”, he explained.
One Health
Precisely the social determinants of health have everything to do with the concept One Health that unites human health, environmental health and animal health in a whole intrinsically united and in a very necessary way to understand public health.
At this point, Gullón recalled that from the point of view of the One Health concept, with the Agency already established in terms of zoonotic diseases for example, “Having integrated information on both human health, animal health and the environment would allow us to provide faster and more effective responses.”, he stressed.
This is the case of the Nile virus, a vector disease transmitted by mosquitoes to humans, for example, which has already killed 9 people in our country. Gullón explained that it could be faced in a more concrete way and with more weapons. “In the case of the Nile virus, for example, with the Agency the issue could be escalated much better” Gullón explained. “We could even have more experts collaborating in field work in the affected regions,” he gave as an example of the Agency’s action.
Gullón concluded his speech by reiterating the main idea of what the State Public Health Agency will be: “The Agency will form a team between all the Public Health DGs of all the CCs. “AA and all the agents involved in public health,” he noted. “It will not take away anyone’s powers, in any case it will give power to Public Health initiatives so that improvements reach everyone”, he concluded.
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