Meeting Report: EVD Network and Coordination Group annual meeting

The first ECDC EVD Programme meeting was held in Stockholm on 4–5 December 2013. The meeting was an important milestone for setting-up a dedicated network of representatives from EU/EEA Member States to interact on emerging and vector-borne diseases. The meeting was held back-to-back with the first joint meeting of the Scientific Network for Risk Assessment in Animal Health and Welfare (AHAW) and the Task Force on Zoonoses Data Collection (TFZDC) of the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA), 5–6 December 2013.

The overall aim of network meetings is to advise ECDC on particular diseases or disease group surveillance; disease prevention and control; technical, epidemiological or scientific aspects of contagious diseases at the EU level; and to improve networking of national and international experts in various disciplines. 

The designated participating experts from EU Member States and enlargement countries discussed: (i) governing structures and procedures regarding the ECDC EVD network of National Focal Points in the context of the ‘one coordinating competent body’ approach; (ii) priorities and types of activities (surveillance, risk assessment, prediction tools, recommendations, guidelines) in the EVD Programme and the Strategic Multi-Annual Programme; and (iii) data collection on EVDs at the EU level. 

Country representatives participated in discussions on proposed new case definitions for dengue and chikungunya, on the feasibility of data collection for the ‘place of infection’ of cases, and on future surveillance data collection for EVDs: indicator based (TESSy data) versus event based (media monitoring).