Eurocommissaris Kyprianou inaugureert nieuw EU-agentschap voor ziektepreventie (en)
The EU's new health agency, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), is being officially inaugurated at a ceremony in Stockholm today. Markos Kyprianou, European Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection, Mrs Zsuzsanna Jakab the Director of the ECDC, Health Minister Mars Di Bartolemeo for the Luxembourg Presidency and Morgan Johansson, the Swedish Public Health Minister are among speakers at the ceremony being held at the prestigious Nobel Forum at Stockholm's Karolinska Institute. SARS in 2003 and the threat of an influenza pandemic have raised concerns about how quickly infectious diseases can spread across borders in our globalised world. This is a particular problem in the EU, where millions of people cross borders each day. The ECDC will reinforce and develop Europe's existing system of continent-wide disease surveillance (see: MEMO/03/155 ) and provide the EU with authoritative scientific advice on threats posed by infectious disease.
Health and Consumer Protection Commissioner Markos Kyprianou said: " Reinforcing Europe's defences against infectious disease is an urgent priority. Health experts warn us that a deadly influenza pandemic could be imminent. The ECDC will enable us to bring together Europe's top disease control experts in a Europe-wide network and bring their collective expertise to bear on the threats facing us in the 21 st century ."
Mrs Zsuzsanna Jakab, the Director of the ECDC said " The ECDC is now operational and building up its capacity. We have a small core team of experts in place in Stockholm and contacts in public health authorities across Europe. This summer I will be appointing a number of senior scientists and administrators to further develop the ECDC's capacity ."
A small but effective EU agency
National public health institutes in the EU and EEA/EFTA countries contain some of the world's leading disease experts. The job of the ECDC is to network this expertise and facilitate cooperation between national disease control authorities. By the end of 2005 the Centre will have a core staff of around 30 officials, rising to around 100 officials by 2007.
Enabling legislation to create the ECDC was adopted by the European Parliament and Council in 2004 (see IP/04/190 ). Mrs Zsuzsanna Jakab, formerly the senior civil servant in Hungary's Ministry of Health, was nominated by the ECDC's Management Board as the Centre's Director in December (see IP/04/1472 ) and took up her post on 1 March this year.
Further Information
For further information see:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/health/ph_overview/strategy/ecdc/ecdc_en.htm