The expert consultation meeting organised by ECDC seeks to identify enabling factors and barriers to good practice in community engagement in the context of public health emergency preparedness. Outcomes of this meeting will inform the development of an ECDC guidance on the topic.

The European public health and blood authorities responded to the threat posed by West Nile virus to blood safety of blood and blood components by adopting preventive measures which are defined in the EU blood legislation, professional guides of the Council of Europe and the EU WNV blood transfusion preparedness plan. The measures include the deferral of blood donors that have visited or residing in a NUTS 3 area considered to be affected (i.e. with at least one confirmed case).

As one of the Maltese Presidency of the European Union of the Council initiatives, a technical meeting brought together leading experts on HIV prevention and control from across the EU to discuss how Europe could improve its response to HIV and achieve the targets outlined in the Sustainable Development Goals, the actions agreed at the UN High-Level meeting on HIV/AIDS and those adopted in the Global Health Sector Strategy at the World Health Assembly.

This working meeting covered a broad range of topics, from guiding principles to collaboration within specific disease areas and across public health functions.

​Directorate General Health and Food safety (DG SANTE) initiated with the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia the assessment of country capacities in the area of communicable diseases.

​Trainex Sofia was a training and simulation exercise involving participants from 27 countries

Due to the arrival of  refugees in Greece, ECDC, the European Commission and Greek authorities continue to closely monitor the situation to rapidly identify and assess potential public health threats related to communicable diseases. 

According to the Ministry of Health of Romania, 12 children, aged between 5-16 months in Arges county attended the District Paediatric Hospital in Bucharest for vomiting and diarrhoea, with or without dehydration, and suspected Haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS) between January 29 and 9 February. Three of the cases have died, three are under dialysis in ICU , five are admitted in a nephrology ward and one has been discharged. No causative agent has been identified yet.

​The "Incidence, Severity and Impact of Influenza Meeting" hosted discussions on the assessment of the impact of influenza epidemics, including infection incidence and severity, and the burden of mortality.

The aim of this conference was to identify learning points arising from the Ebola outbreak in 2014 and 2015 in West Africa.