| WP6: Cross-border epidemic intelligence |
| Justification |
| In an environment where circulation of good and people
is constantly increasing, the epidemic risk is also growing. To fulfil their
public health mission, States must not only exert a continuous monitoring
of their population’s health, but also to set up a capacity to identify
any medical risk emerging internationally. The Sars outbreak in 2003 has
illustrated the nature and the possible dimension of these new threats. |
| Definition |
| The international public health intelligence comes as
a complement to regular monitoring of national surveillance and aims to
identify health threats that can potentially affect these populations. The
objective is not to implement a direct data collection as it would be the
case at national level. Thus, Epidemic intelligence is based on already
collected and circulating information. The added value of the project consists
in the sorting out, verification, analysis and eventually dissemination
of information. |
| Selection criteria |
| From their very nature, communicable diseases are first
concerned by epidemic intelligence. However other public health events,
in particular of environmental nature, are not to be excluded a priori.
Epidemic intelligence must be selective and therefore criteria are defined
by the EpiSouth members to address the specific needs of the project. |
| Outline of the WP6 |
| Two different parts can be identified: Monitoring of health
event (e.g. Avian Flu, Sars, etc.) and the regional cross border issues. |
| Regional cross border issues |
| All participating countries should be able to communicate
their alert of potential common interest to the other participating countries.
An assessment of existing early warning system in the different participating
countries is performed. According to this assessment, the type of information,
the format of collection and of communication is proposed. As a base, the
system should allow rapid circulation of information (mailing list) as well
as offering a space for discussion (secure web site). |