On 12 November Latvia signed the European Declaration on linking genomic databases across borders that aims to improve understanding and prevention of disease and allow for more personalised treatments, in particular for rare diseases, cancer and brain related diseases.
The Declaration is an agreement of cooperation between the countries that want to provide secure and authorised cross-border access to national and regional banks of genetic and other health data, in accordance with all EU data protection rules.The goal is also to keep the EU at the global forefront of personalised medicine, at the same time as fostering scientific output and industrial competitiveness. Latvia is the 19th signatory of the Declaration, which was originally launched on 10 April 2018 during the Digital Day. The other EU Member States that have signed it are Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the UK. In April 2018, the Commission put forward an action plan to secure healthcare data while fostering European cooperation.
The interesting point is ironic; At a time of apparent Brexit confusion, the UK, with it’s Genomics England agency – is one of the leaders in genomics understanding and promotion. and three of the key protagonist countries in Europe – Belgium, Germany, France – are not on the list of signatories to the above declaration.
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ProfoMedia 