International Cooperation Strategies to Implement Effective and Fit for Purpose Surveillance Systems

The COVID-19 pandemic has painfully taught us that having real-time data at our fingertips is key to make decisions on the needed health and social measures. As part of the European Health Union package, the new EU Regulation on serious cross-border threats to health lays the legal base to strengthen epidemiological surveillance in Europe, while maintaining a global vision.

The goal is to implement effective and fit for purpose surveillance systems in European countries with strong international and inter-institutional cooperation. The European Commission, the European Centre of Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and European Union (EU)/ European Economic Area (EEA) Member States are currently defining the concrete implementation of the European surveillance strategy, such as the list of communicable diseases, case definitions, a revamped digital platform for surveillance, EU reference laboratories as well as stronger international cooperation on epidemic surveillance in particular with the African Center for Disease Prevention and Control (Africa CDC).