European CDC closer to reality

Ministers agree that the EU should have a common public health body | By Ned Stafford

European health ministers have agreed in principle to create a European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), whose goals would be similar to those of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The health ministers, meeting Monday (December 1) and Tuesday (December 2) in Brussels as part of the European Council, approved guidelines for creation of an ECDC similar to those suggested in July by the European Commission, which is the European Union's executive body.

The ECDC's prime focus would be to “provide a structured and systematic approach to the control of communicable diseases and other serious health threats,” including potential bioterror attacks.

Thorsten Muench, spokesman for EU Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection David Byrne, told The Scientist that the European Council's ECDC guidelines will be forwarded to the European Parliament. Before the guidelines can become regulation, both Parliament and the European Council, which represent the governments of EU member nations, must agree on identical versions.

Muench said early indications are that Parliament, which will take up the proposed ECDC regulation in February, will support the European Council's guidelines or will offer only minor revisions. The next European Council meeting after Parliament debates the issue is in March.

“The general feeling is that this regulation will be passed in the first half of next year,” he said.

If so, then the ECDC could be operational in early 2005, he said.

In comparing the ECDC to the US CDC, he said: “The goals of the ECDC are the same as the CDC, but the administrative structure is different.”

The ECDC would become operational in early 2005 with a staff of about 30 people, growing eventually to a full force of only about 100 people, he said. The ECDC would not have its own labs, but instead would work closely with EU member nation's institutes, such as the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin, and other scientists throughout the European Union, he said.

“We have a lot of expertise in the EU,” he said. “The ECDC will not replace those efforts, but will network that expertise and facilitate coordination between the institutes.”

Muench said that Health Commissioner Byrne had favored an ECDC for years and even visited the US CDC in Atlanta 2 years ago on a fact-finding mission. Last year, epidemiologists from EU member nations agreed on the need for an ECDC. But the proposed ECDC did not move to the top of a busy EU political agenda until earlier this year, with the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, he said.

In July, the European Commission adopted the ECDC proposal, saying in a statement that it wanted to “substantially reinforce the means to control communicable diseases effectively in Europe.”

The commission said: “The structure of the existing EU network on communicable diseases, managed by the commission and based on ad hoc cooperation between member states since 1991, is simply not efficient enough to protect the EU's citizens sufficiently against threats to their health posed by communicable diseases, including the possibility of the deliberate release of infectious agents (bioterrorism).”

Core tasks of the ECDC would include epidemiological surveillance and laboratory networking, early warning and rapid and effective response to health threats, providing scientific assessments, providing technical assistance and investigative teams in Europe or outside of Europe, development of EU level preparedness planning for health crises, and communicating on health threats.