ECDC country visit to Kosovo to discuss surveillance of communicable diseases

The aim of technical cooperation with countries in the Western Balkans and Türkiye is to support their capacity to implement EU rules on communicable diseases, improve the ‘One Health’ response to antimicrobial resistance (AMR), and enhance surveillance of laboratory-confirmed severe acute respiratory infections (SARI). The project is funded by the European Commission’s European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations (DG NEAR) under the Instrument of Pre-accession Assistance (IPA).

The project is structured around three technical work streams. Work Stream 1 encompasses preparatory measures to enable IPA beneficiaries to enhance communicable disease surveillance and control capacities, improve health emergency preparedness and support public health laboratory systems development. This will enable the national health authorities to fulfil ECDC’s requirements for disease data submission at the minimum level required by the EU. The expected results of this stream are:

• enhanced EU-level data so that communicable disease surveillance data are more comparable, timely and reliable;
• long-term expansion of ECDC’s scientific and surveillance outputs, covering a broader geographical area within Europe that includes the Western Balkans and Türkiye;
• improved response to public health threats from infectious diseases at the national level, with early detection of and response to serious cross-border threats at the EU level.

In the context of Work Stream 1, ECDC conducted a technical visit to Kosovo* in March 2025 to obtain additional information on the country’s national surveillance system, including its operation and governance. The aim of this initiative was to provide ECDC with a comprehensive overview of the needs, vulnerabilities and strengths of the surveillance system. To help ECDC ensure the consistency of the visit and follow-up of progress, an assessment tool was used. The tool included eight topics regarded as core areas for successful communicable disease surveillance and control and was used as guide for discussion. The insights gained during the assessment mission were used to identify areas where surveillance operations could be further strengthened and those elements that could benefit from ECDC’s technical support or guidance.

^{*This designation is without prejudice to positions on status and is in line with UNSCR 1244/1999 and the ICJ Opinion on the Kosovo declaration of independence.}