A National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) is a group within Ireland's

Department of Health A health department or health ministry is a part of government which focuses on issues related to the general health of the citizenry. Subnational entities, such as states, counties and cities, often also operate a health department of their ow ...

. It is in the power of the

Minister for Health A health minister is the member of a country's government typically responsible for protecting and promoting public health and providing welfare and other social security services. Some governments have separate ministers for mental health. Coun ...

to convene such a group when a

public health Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals". Analyzing the det ...

emergency arises. Since the 2000s, multiple NPHETs have been established to deal with different emergencies.

History

Influenza A

The first NPHET was convened in October 2006, to aid with planning for a possible future human

influenza Influenza, commonly known as "the flu", is an infectious disease caused by influenza viruses. Symptoms range from mild to severe and often include fever, runny nose, sore throat, muscle pain, headache, coughing, and fatigue. These symptoms ...

pandemic (prompted by increasing international concern at the time over

Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 (A/H5N1) is a subtype of the influenza A virus which can cause illness in humans and many other animal species. A bird-adapted strain of H5N1, called HPAI A(H5N1) for highly pathogenic avian influenza virus of type ...

). It initially met on a quarterly basis during this planning phase, and was chaired by the Department of Health's secretary general. In 2009, the then-Minister for Health,

Mary Harney Mary Harney (born 11 March 1953) is an Irish former politician and the current Chancellor of the University of Limerick. She was leader of the Progressive Democrats party between 1993 and 2006 and again from 2007 to 2008, resuming the role aft ...

, activated public health emergency structures in response to the

2009 swine flu pandemic The 2009 swine flu pandemic, caused by the H1N1 influenza virus and declared by the World Health Organization (WHO) from June 2009 to August 2010, is the third recent flu pandemic involving the H1N1 virus (the first being the 1918–1920 Span ...

Influenza A virus subtype H1N1 In virology, influenza A virus subtype H1N1 (A/H1N1) is a subtype of influenza A virus. Major outbreaks of H1N1 strains in humans include the Spanish flu, the 1977 Russian flu pandemic and the 2009 swine flu pandemic. It is an orthomyxovirus ...

. Harney described the structure of this NPHET in a statement to

Seanad Éireann Seanad Éireann (, ; "Senate of Ireland") is the upper house of the Oireachtas (the Irish legislature), which also comprises the President of Ireland and Dáil Éireann (the lower house). It is commonly called the Seanad or Senate and its memb ...

on 6 May 2009. The team was chaired by the Secretary-General of the Department of Health, and was "fed into" by the

Health Service Executive The Health Service Executive (HSE) ( ga, Feidhmeannacht na Seirbhíse Sláinte) is the publicly funded healthcare system in Ireland, responsible for the provision of health and personal social services. It came into operation on 1 January 2005 ...

's crisis management team, the Department's own pandemic expert guidance group (chaired by Professor Bill Hall) and the EU co-ordination group. Its role was to manage the interface between the Department and the HSE, and to act as the main decision making forum for the health system response.

CPE

A public health emergency was declared in Ireland on 25 October 2017 with respect to carbapenemase-producing enterobacteriaceae (CPE). The Minister for Health,

Simon Harris Simon Harris (born 17 October 1986) is an Irish politician who has served as Taoiseach and leader of Fine Gael since 2024. A TD for the Wicklow constituency since 2011, he has served as a minister in the government of Ireland since 2016 and f ...

, convened a NPHET for CPE to provide advice, support, guidance and direction on surveillance and containment of the outbreak. It held its first meeting on 2 November 2017. The government website contains

minutes Minutes, also known as minutes of meeting (abbreviation MoM), protocols or, informally, notes, are the instant written record of a meeting or hearing. They typically describe the events of the meeting and may include a list of attendees, a state ...

from NPHET meetings in 2019. By 2019, the CPE emergency was better controlled and plans were being made to bring the "NPHET process" to an end.

COVID-19

A NPHET to deal with the emerging

SARS-CoV-2 Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‑CoV‑2) is a strain of coronavirus that causes COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019), the respiratory illness responsible for the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The virus previously had a ...

and

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

was created on 27 January 2020. It was disbanded in February 2022 after the majority of COVID-19 restrictions were removed. A new advisory group was established on 8 April 2022.

References

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