The agency’s decision to retract guidance on flexible testing and treating Group A streptococcal infections has created a crisis of confidence
Sweden’s Minister for Social Affairs and Public Health has been called to appear before Parliament amid growing concerns over the lack of medical competence of a senior specialist at the Public Health Agency. The agency’s Director General is also set to testify before a parliamentary committee on 11 September.
When Magnus Gisslén, an infectious diseases professor and a specialist, resigned last week as the nation’s state epidemiologist at the Swedish Public Health Agency, the country’s authority for infection control, he went public with his motives in an opinion piece in the daily Dagens Nyheter.
There, he expressed serious concerns about what he described as a lack of medical expertise in the agency’s management team, a weak scientific basis and ineffective leadership.
“For me, there was no alternative. It is so incredibly important for Sweden that we have an infectious disease control authority that functions on the day a pandemic strikes. I feel a responsibility to ensure that things improve,” he told Euractiv.
The Public Health Agency was formed in 2014 through the merger of the National Institute of Public Health and the Swedish Institute for Communicable Disease Control. Since then, it has been in hot water many times, particularly during the pandemic.
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