European Tuberculosis Surveillance Network

The European Tuberculosis Surveillance Network consists of tuberculosis (TB) surveillance experts from all 53 countries belonging to the World Health Organization’s European Region and Liechtenstein, including all 31 European Union and European Economic Area (EU/EEA) Member States. Under the joint coordination of ECDC and the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Europe, the network collects, validates, analyses and disseminates European TB surveillance data. The purpose of the network is to identify epidemiological patterns of TB in the region and monitor progress towards TB elimination, with key surveillance and monitoring findings published in an annual report. In addition, the network aims to further strengthen TB surveillance in Europe.

Activities

European Tuberculosis Surveillance Network members from EU/EEA countries submit their national data electronically to the European Surveillance System (TESSy) database hosted by ECDC. Network members from the remaining countries in the region report to WHO’s Tuberculosis Monitoring and Evaluation database. By default, data submitted refer to cases reported at national level in the previous year, but treatment outcome data may refer to cases started on treatment up to three years previously.

The network holds TB surveillance meetings to discuss operational aspects, interpret data and identify areas for improvement. Meetings enable network members to learn about changes in the common metadata and case definition and share good reporting practices to improve data quality and comparability.