The view from ESCAIDE 2025: EU Health Task Force marks first 1 000 days of operations
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) presented the achievements of the EU Health Task Force (EUHTF) during a fireside session at this year’s European Scientific Conference on Applied Infectious Disease Epidemiology (ESCAIDE), which is taking place this week in Warsaw, Poland.
The event provided an opportunity to share insights from the EU Health Task Force’s first 1 000 days of activity and to highlight its expanding role in strengthening preparedness and response capacities in the EU/EEA and globally.
Since becoming operational in May 2023, the EUHTF has received 36 requests for support and implemented 33 assignments. These have included 25 requests from 15 EU/EEA countries, covering both preparedness activities and outbreak support, as well as eight emergency operations in countries outside the EU/EEA, most delivered in collaboration with partner countries and organisations such as the European Commission, the World Health Organization and the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network.
To meet these requests, 17 EUHTF experts have so far been deployed to the field, while a further 42 have contributed remotely or through short missions. Mobilisation has been supported by three complementary pools of experts: the ECDC expert pool, the ECDC fellowship pool, and the EUHTF external expert pool.
The session at ESCAIDE also highlighted the EUHTF’s largest operation to date - the response support provided to the mpox outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (. Over a five-month period in 2024, more than 10 experts contributed to surveillance, data management, and field operations, demonstrating the value of flexible deployment models, strong coordination with international partners, and the continuity ensured by overlapping teams.
The session drew strong engagement from participants, with questions coming from both the live audience and those joining remotely, reflecting widespread interest in the EUHTF’s work.
By sharing these milestones at ESCAIDE 2025, ECDC also raised awareness of the EUHTF’s role and exchanged lessons learned with the wider public health community. The first 1 000 days have shown that the EUHTF is a key mechanism, enhancing ECDC’s capacity to mobilise EU expertise to deliver timely, coordinated and needs-driven Union-level support – both within and beyond the EU/EEA. The EUHTF continues to grow as an essential pillar of European preparedness and response, providing support to improve national and cross-border preparedness, and enhancing EU-wide resilience.
Background
Established under the EU Regulation on serious cross-border threats to health (2022/2371) and ECDC’s enhanced mandate, the EUHTF was created to address preparedness and response gaps revealed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
