Project liaison officer: Herve Zeller
The ENIVD Collaborative Laboratory Response Network is a network of expert laboratories on imported viral diseases, funded by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).
The network supports ECDC in:
- providing outbreak support, in particular related to laboratory diagnostics;
- assisting EU Member States, Candidate Countries and the EEA/EFTA countries in detecting, investigating and responding to outbreak-prone diseases, imported agents, rare agents, unknown agents or outbreaks related to intentional release.
ENIVD conducts External Quality Assessment (EQA) studies in order to assess the diagnostic quality of expert laboratories and publishes the results. It offers advice and support to the EQA participants to help improving their techniques and procedures. The network also supported the three year pilot phase (09/2008-08/2011) of the European Public Health Microbiologist training programme (EUPHEM) providing the coordination and the training sites in several locations (the training programme is now run by ECDC).
The network of expert laboratories on imported viral diseases participated actively in the response to the West Nile outbreaks in Europe in 2010 by providing confirmatory testing and techniques for the detection of West Nile virus strains.
In 2010 two EQA studies were conducted - on the molecular detection and serology of yellow fever virus and on the serological diagnostic of hantavirus infections. In addition, a pilot EQA on West Nile infection has been launched jointly with the European Society for Clinical Virology. In 2011, EQAs are conducted on serology of hantaviruses, tick-borne encephalitis neutralizing antibodies and molecular detection of Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever.
The activities are divided in 4 work packages (WP):
Programme leader: Matthias Niedrig, Robert Koch Institute, Berlin
Hold a Network secretariat for the overall administration of the project including the maintenance of a directory of the Network members and their expertise/capacity, organisation of Steering Committee and annual Network meetings, and preparation and update of documents/deliverables for dissemination on the ECDC website. |
Antonio Tenorio, Instituto Carlos III, Madrid
Participate actively in the epidemic intelligence activities of the ECDC (support outbreak and cluster detection, verification and investigation) and give technical advice and guidance for risk assessment and risk communication from the microbiologist's perspective. |
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Jean-Claude Manuguerra, Institut Pasteur, Paris
Maintain a 24/7 on call duty system (generic dial-in number and e-mail address) through which ECDC can access all year round the expertise within the Network.
Provide support activities in order to develop/update shared operating procedures for outbreak Assistance Laboratories, build a laboratory sampling module for the Outbreak Assistance Team (OAT) toolkit, produce operational briefing material for OATs by agents/groups of agents on sampling, diagnostic & biosafety issues, provide remote advice, and if needed laboratory assistance or mobilisation of experts in the field with or without laboratory equipment. |
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Oliver Donoso-Mantke, Robert Koch Institute, Berlin
Provide external quality assurance (EQA) studies on agents/groups of agents prioritised by the Network and according to actual needs. |