http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/323/7323/1208/a
BMJ 2001;323:1208 ( 24 November )
Rory Watson Brussels
European health ministers are planning to strengthen and extend the existing
European Union's communicable diseases network so that it can be used in the
event of bioterrorist attacks.
The network already links a number of national surveillance institutes, and
EU legislation lists the communicable diseases that need to be placed under
continent-wide surveillance—such as tuberculosis, measles, influenza, AIDS, and
hepatitis C.
The London based Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre, for example, is
acting as the hub of the operation to track developments linked to
legionellosis and salmonellosis infection with Escherichia coli O157,
and the Institut de Veille Sanitaire in Paris is performing the same role for
tuberculosis and HIV and AIDS.
Similar networks are also in place to monitor any outbreaks of flu, viral
haemorrhagic fevers, antimicrobial resistance, and nosocomial infections.
But others, covering hepatitis C, meningococcal disease, measles,
brucellosis, and rabies and involving institutes in Stockholm, Berlin, Rome,
Athens, and London, are only in their pilot phase. At their Brussels meeting in
mid-November, EU health ministers agreed that efforts should be made to make
these networks fully operational.
They also decided that the network could be developed to keep national
authorities informed of any potential bioterrorist risks and to deploy joint
investigation teams. It will now be used to disseminate information on Europe’s
supplies of serums, vaccines, and antibiotics and on the ability of its
laboratories to produce the quantities that might be needed in the event of an
attack.
In addition to its surveillance role, the network includes an early warning
and response system to alert public health authorities of outbreaks of diseases
that could quickly spread across national borders. This is designed to enable
early consultation between experts on the risk management required to protect
populations that could be in danger. The European Commission believes that the
network is beginning to prove its worth and points to its use during recent
outbreaks of paratyphoid fever in Turkey, legionnaires' disease in Belgium, and
Lassa fever in Germany.
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