As European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, Stella Kyriakides has been leading the Commission’s work on the public health response to COVID-19. Commissioner Kyriakides is responsible for a number of initiatives in the area of health, aiming to establish a strong European Health Union. She is also responsible for the ‘Farm to Fork’ strategy for sustainable food, covering every step in the transformation of the food chain from production to consumption. Since February 2022, Commissioner Kyriakides has been at the forefront of EU efforts to support Ukraine and its people in the area of health. In 2006-2019, she was elected to the Cyprus Parliament for the Democratic Rally party, of which she was the Vice-President for ten years. In 2011, she was appointed Head of the Cyprus Delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). In 2017, she was elected President of the PACE, the fourth woman to hold this position in the history of the Assembly. She has been an active advocate on patients’ rights and on the rights of cancer patients, and served on numerous European patient advocacy and scientific boards.