ECDC activities on epidemic intelligence and outbreak response
Monitoring and assessing threats to public health in Europe from infectious diseases are core tasks for ECDC, as is providing technical support to the EU-level response to such threats.
The Centre’s mission is to identify, assess and communicate current and emerging threats to human health from communicable diseases.
The objective of epidemic intelligence is to rapidly detect and assess public health events of any origin to ensure the EU’s health security. Epidemic intelligence can be described as the systematic collection and collation of information from a variety of sources, which is then validated and analysed. The aim is to ensure a timely response, based on an adequate risk assessment with recommendations on appropriate public health measures.
ECDC supports the response to infectious disease threats to EU:
- Coordinate and support the rapid assessment of risks and the identification of options for response.
- Support national and international field response through missions.
Tools (public access)
epitweetr
epitweetr allows users to automatically monitor trends on Twitter to detect public health threats early. It can monitor trends by time, place and topic, and detect patterns such as an unusual increase in the number of tweets. It was designed to support public health experts with the early detection of threats from infectious diseases but can be extended to all hazards and other fields of study by using different topics and keywords.
Tools (restricted access)
EpiPulse
EpiPulse is an online portal for European public health authorities and global partners to collect, analyse, share, and discuss infectious disease data for threat detection, monitoring, risk assessment and outbreak response. It facilitates collection, analysis and dissemination of indicator- and event-based surveillance data on infectious diseases and associated health issues, including global epidemic intelligence, whole-genome sequencing, and health determinants.
Information sources
Open access
| Source | Description | Access |
|---|---|---|
| CDC | Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - USA | Public access |
| CIDRAP | Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy | Public access |
| FluTrackers | Website, online forum and early warning system for infectious diseases | Public access |
| HealthMap | News aggregator for disease outbreak monitoring and real-time surveillance | Public access |
| ESA Platform | French Platform for Animal Health Surveillance | Public access |
| Eurostat | Statistical office of the European Union | Public access |
| Social media platform. It requires an account to access the platform | Public access | |
| Frontex | European Boarder and Coast Guard Agency | Public access |
| GDACS | Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System (GDACS) | Public access |
| GeoSentinel/ EuroTravNet | Worldwide communication and data collection network for the surveillance of travel-related morbidity | Public access |
| IOM | International Organization for Migration | Public access |
| MEDISYS | News aggregator for all hazards | Public access |
| NaTHNac | British National Travel Health Network and Centre | Public access |
| The New Humanitarian | Independent news agency focusing on humanitarian issues | Public access |
| OCHA | United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs | Public access |
| Outbreak News Today | Health and disease news website focused on the latest news and information pertaining to infectious diseases | Public access |
| ProMED | The program for monitoring emerging diseases of the International Society for Infectious Diseases (ISID) | Public access |
| ReliefWeb | Humanitarian information service provided by OCHA on global crises and disasters | Public access |
| TropNet | European Network for Tropical Medicine and Travel Health | Public access |
| Microblogging service and social media platform. It requires an account to access the platform | Public access | |
| UNHCR | The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees | Public access |
| World Bank | The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to countries for capital programs. | Public access |
WHO sources
|
Source |
Description |
Access |
|---|---|---|
|
WHO Regional Office for Europe |
Public access |
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WHO Regional Office for the Western Pacific |
Public access |
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WHO Regional Office for South-East Asia |
Public access |
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WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean |
Public access |
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WHO Regional Office for Africa |
Public access |
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WHO Regional Office for the Americas |
Public access |
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WHO Disease Outbreak News |
Public access |
|
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World Health Organization |
Public access |
Restricted sources
|
Source |
Description |
Access |
|---|---|---|
|
The Early Warning and Response System of the European Union. Access and posting is limited to public health authorities of the EU/EEA Member States and the competent service of the European Commission |
Restricted |
|
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Epidemic Intelligence Information System |
Restricted |
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Global Infectious Diseases and Epidemiology Network |
Restricted |
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Global Public Health Intelligence Network |
Restricted |
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EU Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF). It contains alerts, information, border rejections and news. Part of the information is publicly available |
Restricted |
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Epidemic Intelligence from Open Sources. |
Restricted |
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Animal Disease Notification System |
Restricted |
Training resources
E-learning course on Epidemic Intelligence (EI)
This is a self paced e-learning course to be taken by participants in an asynchronous fashion with the objective of transmitting basic knowledge about how ECDC conducts its EI activities.