First meeting of ECDC Expert Group on Climate Change – 07–08 September 2009

Given the sensitivity that many diseases have to climatic factors, it is widely anticipated that climate change will lead to shifts in the transmission ranges of communicable diseases. This meeting was organised to further discuss how ECDC and EU Member States can work together to confront climate change.
An important message from the meeting is that climate change is a threat multiplier: it may generate new threats, but its primary impact will likely be through the ways that it exacerbates existing threats. It will likely alter factors such as the geographical range of disease spread and the seasonality of diseases.