At the start of the meeting the head of Environment Committee Jo Leinen noted that "there was a lot of uproar about the virus but fortunately it was not that bad which raised a lot of questions".

"What came first: vaccines or the virus?"

The Head of World Health Organisation in Europe, Zsuzsanna Jakab, told the hearing that "we had little information and were prepared for much worse. We must be more flexible in the future".

Many MEPs asked questions about the financial cost of all the vaccines and of the importance of openness when purchasing large amounts of vaccines.

Portuguese leftist MEP Marisa Matias commented that "so much money went to vaccines and it was not used" whilst Slovenian Member Alojz Peterle (EPP) asked "what came first: vaccines or the virus?"

French Liberal Corinne Lepage called for complete independence of the experts and vaccine manufacturers. British Labour MEP Glennis Willmott (S&D group) pressed home this point saying that "transparency and links with pharmaceutical groups "need to be clarified" because there are "there are reasonable questions on transparency and decision making. We need more transparent procedures".

Communication: "Health workers are of key importance"

The general opinion was that "communication with the public went very badly" according to senior European Commission official Paola Testori Coggi. She noted that the name of the virus was unclear - it was called variously "swine flu", "Mexican flu" and so forth and each country had its own term or name.

The Director of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), Marc Sprenger, told the hearing that "our risk communication needs to become more sophisticated. We need to better understand what parts of the media are most effective at reaching people. Health workers are of key importance".

Vaccines vary in price across Europe - why?

During the influenza crisis it became clear that there were price differences between EU members. At that time the Commission had made a document analysing the different public procurement options available and said the price difference was based on several variables (quantity of purchasing for example). However, all MEPs agreed that in the future joint procurement should be considered.

The Commission is going to submit a proposal for regulation next year, looking also into joint procurement mechanism for pandemic vaccines, coordinated vaccination strategies and better communication strategy both to the public and health professionals.