Pandemieplan für respiratorische Krankheiten

Objectives

Austria’s 2023 Pandemic Plan for Respiratory Diseases is a living national framework for preparing for, managing and learning from pandemics caused by respiratory pathogens, including influenza, SARS-CoV-2 and novel pathogens. It seeks effective, efficient and adaptable pandemic management that affords the population the best possible protection, while avoiding rigid instructions because a future pandemic’s course cannot be predicted precisely.[1][2][3]

• Strengthen preparedness through crisis structures, modern legal foundations, resilient information technology, comprehensive surveillance, diagnostic capacity, procurement, stockpiling, testing and vaccination arrangements.[4][5][6][7]
• Detect and assess infectious disease threats early through timely regional epidemiological intelligence, including surveillance of respiratory illness, severe disease, genomic variants and wastewater.[8][6]
• Apply proportionate, evidence-informed measures that balance public-health benefit with societal, psychosocial and economic effects, minimise unintended consequences and are reviewed as evidence and the epidemiological situation change.[9][10][11]
• Support public understanding and compliance through health literacy, transparent and accessible risk communication, and information tailored to differing population needs.[12]
• Embed learning from COVID-19, regular evaluation, exercises and transition-phase knowledge transfer in preparation for future pandemics.[13][14][15]

Implementation

Delivery is organised across preparedness, pandemic and transition phases, led by the Federal Ministry of Social Affairs, Health, Care and Consumer Protection in cooperation with federal ministries, provincial authorities, public health agencies, social insurance institutions, scientific bodies and European and international partners. Federal legislation and execution on communicable disease surveillance and control are implemented through provincial governors and district administrative authorities under Austria’s indirect federal administration system.[16][3][17][18]

• Establish and activate ministry crisis-management structures, including defined authority, responsibilities, standard procedures, staffing arrangements, premises, information technology and links to regional and international coordination mechanisms.[4][13]
• Coordinate nationally through the State Crisis and Disaster Management system, provincial public health directors and health ministers, with expert advice from the Supreme Health Council, National Immunisation Panel, Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety, Gesundheit Österreich GmbH, reference centres and scientific institutions.[17][19][20]
• Engage European and international mechanisms, including the World Health Organization, European Union Health Security Committee, Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority Board, Integrated Political Crisis Response arrangements and Early Warning and Response System, for information exchange, coordinated action, medical countermeasures and cross-border response.[18][21]
• Modernise legal and data systems by revising epidemiological legislation, developing Epidemiological Reporting System 2.0, standardising reporting channels and reconciling relevant data, subject to data-protection safeguards.[4][5]
• Maintain surveillance and situation assessment using notified cases, deaths, hospitalisations, variants, population immunity, vaccination coverage, surveys, modelling and expert advice; use these findings to inform and communicate risk assessments and recommendations.[22][23][9]
• Prepare scalable laboratory, testing, vaccine, medicine, storage and logistics capacity through procurement arrangements, reservation contracts, strategic federal crisis stockpiles and centrally planned but provincially delivered testing and vaccination structures.[6][7][24]
• Implement measures through recommendations, instructions to provincial governors and legally binding regulations, selecting tools such as testing, contact tracing, isolation, movement restrictions, masks, gathering rules and access requirements according to pathogen characteristics and transmission dynamics.[10][25][26]
• Prioritise testing for defined purposes and groups, particularly symptomatic people, access requirements and early detection in vulnerable settings; consider broad testing only where robust modelling indicates sufficient epidemiological benefit relative to feasibility and cost.[27][28]
• Review preparedness measures and legal provisions continuously, conduct regular exercises, reassess restrictive or long-term measures, and transfer knowledge from pandemic operations into the next preparedness cycle.[5][13][9][14]
• Apply established cost responsibilities under the Financial Constitutional Act 1948 and section 36 of the Epidemics Act, with special federal financing arrangements available through legislation where required; the plan does not specify a total budget or quantified funding allocation.[29]

Monitoring & Evaluation

The plan establishes a preparedness-to-response monitoring cycle centred on comprehensive epidemiological surveillance, case-based notification, integrated data systems, regular assessment of the epidemiological situation, review of measures, exercises and post-pandemic learning.[3][4][8][23][14]

• Maintain mandatory notification of specified diseases, deaths and, where applicable, suspected cases, recording these reports in the register of notifiable diseases to enable case-based surveillance, isolation, environmental investigation and contact tracing.[22]
• Assess public-health events nationally and notify the World Health Organization within 24 hours where required under the International Health Regulations; a corresponding European Union notification obligation applies.[22]
• Strengthen the Epidemiological Reporting System 2.0 and standardise reporting channels for hospital capacity and occupancy, intensive-care occupancy, deaths, testing, contact tracing and staff absences.[5]
• Integrate surveillance of primary-care respiratory illness, severe hospitalised respiratory infection, genomic sequencing and wastewater to provide timely regional intelligence on disease trends, risk groups, severity and variant impacts.[8][6]
• Reconcile, subject to data-protection safeguards, data from the Epidemiological Reporting System, hospital information systems and the electronic vaccination record; use anonymised or pseudonymised data to assess the necessity and effectiveness of measures and support rapid contact tracing.[5]
• Compile an epidemiological situation picture using infections, deaths, hospitalisations, dominant variants, population immunity and vaccination coverage, supplemented by surveys, investigations, forecasts, modelling and expert advice.[23][9]
• Assign the Federal Ministry of Social Affairs, Health, Care and Consumer Protection crisis-management team responsibility for presenting the situation picture, with contributions from the Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety, Gesundheit Österreich GmbH and the federal provinces where appropriate.[9]
• Exchange national and cross-border intelligence through World Health Organization and European Union mechanisms, including the Event Information Site and Early Warning and Response System, which may also support secure contact-tracing data exchange.[18]
• Review preparedness measures continuously, conduct regular exercises to sustain staff competence and crisis readiness, and incorporate learning into revised arrangements.[4][13]
• Evaluate the plan regularly and amend it in response to changing conditions, scientific evidence, legal developments, international standards and relevant recommendations of the Austrian Court of Audit.[3][5]
• Monitor the effects of pandemic measures continuously, repeat benefit-harm assessments when evidence or epidemiological conditions change, and reassess longer-term or highly restrictive measures at appropriate intervals.[9]
• Publish evidence-based risk assessments and recommendations where appropriate, as demonstrated by publication of COVID-19 assessments and executive reports through government websites.[20][23]
• Undertake knowledge transfer and evaluation of pandemic work and processes by the end of the pandemic phase, continue these activities during preparedness, and use findings to prepare for subsequent pandemics.[14]

The plan does not specify a consolidated indicator framework, quantified performance targets, an overall reporting timetable, a formal independent evaluation body or a comprehensive accountability framework beyond notification duties, data arrangements, expert review, coordination and regular plan revision.[17][19][18][21][15][30]

Costing & Financing

Financing provisions focus on allocation of statutory cost responsibilities and on maintaining procurement, stockpiling, diagnostic, testing, vaccination, data and crisis-management capacity, but the plan provides no total pandemic budget, costed implementation plan or quantified funding gap.[29][6][7]

• Apply the general principle that the federal government and other levels of government bear costs arising from their own responsibilities unless legislation provides otherwise.[29]
• Use section 36 of the Epidemics Act to determine pandemic-related costs borne by the federal government, including specified costs initially incurred by the federal provinces.[29]
• Enable additional federal financing through special legislation, exemplified by the COVID-19 Purpose Subsidy Act.[29]
• Prepare emergency procurement, storage and logistics arrangements, reservation contracts for vaccines and medicines, and a strategic federal crisis warehouse developed with the Ministry of Defence.[6][7]
• Mobilise laboratory and testing capacity through procurement of test kits, legal provision for additional providers and selective expansion of existing Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety capacity; permanently maintaining all surge capacity is not financially or organisationally feasible.[6]
• Procure and distribute medically relevant supplies, protective equipment and disinfectants when required, including releases from strategic federal crisis stock; COVID-19 arrangements permitted free transfers to designated public bodies and social insurance institutions.[28][24]
• Assess broad testing against expected epidemiological benefit, implementation feasibility and substantial cost, since COVID-19 testing incurred very high costs without conclusive evidence of effectiveness.[28]
• Recognise that case and contact tracing and preparation of isolation orders required major personnel and infrastructure resources during COVID-19, while effectiveness declined at high case numbers.[26]
• Consider societal, psychosocial and economic effects, including potentially substantial negative effects of access restrictions, when selecting and reviewing pandemic measures.[9][31][32]

No monetary allocations, expenditure amounts, unit costs, funding-source breakdowns, resource-mobilisation targets, quantified funding gaps or wider economic assumptions are specified in the supplied text.[29][7][20][15]