Emerging infectious diseases
A briefing from the Board of Science
November 2004
Sources of information and relevant organisations
Europe
European Centre for Disease Control and Infection
In Spring 2004 the Council and the European Parliament adopted enabling legislation to create a European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. This new EU agency will provide a structured and systematic approach to the control of communicable diseases and other serious health threats which affect EU citizens. The ECDC will also mobilise and significantly reinforce the synergies between the existing national centres for disease control. Its main tasks will be epidemiological surveillance and networking of laboratories, early warning and response, offering scientific opinion and technical assistance and communication. The ECDC is due to start work in May 2005.
europa.eu.int
Eurosurveillance is a multiformat journal that publishes authoritative, peer-reviewed European information on communicable diseases from a Europe-wide perspective.
www.eurosurveillance.org
US
The US National Centre for Infectious Diseases, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), produces an enormous amount of information on infectious diseases including fact sheets on specific diseases and outbreaks. It also produces a bimonthly journal Emerging Infectious Diseases. www.cdc.gov
The Institute of Medicine has established a Forum on Microbial Threats. In recent years this body has produced a number of publications on infectious diseases including:
- The infectious etiology of chronic diseases: Defining the relationship, enhancing the research and mitigating the effects (2004)
- Learning from SARS: Preparing for the Next Disease Outbreak (2004)
- The resistance phenomenon in microbes and infectious disease vectors: Implications for human health and strategies for containment (2003)
- Biological threats and terrorism: Assessing the science and response capabilities (2002)
- The emergence of zoonotic diseases: Understanding the impact on animal and human health (2002)
- Considerations for viral disease eradication: Lessons learned and future strategies (2002)
- Emerging infectious diseases from the global to the local perspective (2001)
- Antimicrobial resistance: issues and options (1998)
- Orphans and Incentives: Developing Technologies to Address Emerging Infections (1997)