ECDC website

Who we are

The ECDC mission

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The Centre’s mission is laid down in Article 3 of the Founding Regulation:
‘The mission of the Centre shall be to identify, assess and communicate current and emerging threats to human health from communicable diseases. In the case of other outbreaks of illness of unknown origin, which may spread within or to the Community, the Centre shall act on its own initiative until the source of the outbreak is known. In the case of an outbreak which clearly is not caused by a communicable disease, the Centre shall act only in cooperation with the competent authority, upon request from that authority.’

Key tasks of ECDC include:

  • operating dedicated surveillance networks;
  • providing scientific opinions and promoting and initiating studies;
  • operating the Early Warning and Response System;
  • providing scientific and technical assistance and training;
  • identifying emerging health threats;
  • collecting and analysing data;
  • communicating on its activities to key audiences.

The ECDC vision

To improve lives in Europe and globally applying scientific excellence, thus empowering the Member States, the European Commission, and other partners to drive public health policy and practice.

The ECDC Strategy

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Strategy 2021–2027

ECDC’s 2021–2027 strategy has five main objectives:

Strategic objective 1. Strengthen and apply scientific excellence in all ECDC activities and outputs to inform public health policy and practice.

Strategic objective 2. Support the countries to strengthen their capacities and capabilities to make evidence-based decisions on public health policies and practices.

Strategic objective 3. Future outlook: prepare for the future through foresight and innovation assessments.

Strategic objective 4. Increase health security in the EU through strengthened cooperation and coordination between ECDC and partners in non-EU countries.

Strategic objective 5. Transform the organisation to the next generation ECDC.

Work on the ECDC strategy 2021–2027: main achievements

Despite the challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic, combined with the outbreaks of mpox, hepatitis of unknown origin in children, and the Ukraine crisis, ECDC still managed to produce most of its regular outputs.

  • ECDC updated its Surveillance Atlas of Infectious Diseases with 2021 data and published updated Annual Epidemiological Report chapters covering 2019, 2020 and 2021 to catch up with delays due to the COVID19 pandemic.
  • The new ECDC surveillance portal, EpiPulse, allowing ECDC and Member States users to perform all surveillance operations from one single entry point, was adapted to generate the daily and weekly Communicable Diseases Threats Reports (CDTR), which were published throughout the year.
  • ECDC continued producing independent and evidence-based scientific advice. The Centre published 210 ECDC scientific outputs on its website and 65 peer-reviewed articles in scientific journals.
  • The training of cohorts 2021 and 2022 of the ECDC Fellowship Programme was delivered as planned. In 2022, 24 fellows graduated from the ECDC Fellowship Programme and the EPIET-associated programmes, while 73 fellows were enrolled by the end of the year.
  • All ECDC hallmark events were successfully organised: the ESCAIDE conference (23−25 November 2022), which was held as a hybrid event for the first time and received overwhelmingly positive feedback; the European Antibiotic Awareness Day (18 November 2022), and the ECDC session at the European Health Forum Gastein (EHFG) (28 September 2022).

In the area of surveillance, ECDC started a framework contract with a consortium to facilitate the transition of Member States towards automated surveillance from electronic health records. A total of 13 countries began implementing surveillance of Severe Acute Respiratory Infections (SARI) and 22 are ready to start with surveillance of bloodstream infections in 2023.

To support knowledge exchange between Member States, ECDC released a new Repository of Member State Policy and Practice Resources. The repository will act as a gateway to quality-assured policy and practice resources that have been published by national public health institutes, national ministries of health, or recognised and respected learned societies and academies. The aim of the repository is to facilitate and improve the sharing of such resources and expertise. The topic being piloted is SoHO biovigilance guides, with more developments planned for 2023.

In 2022, the journal Eurosurveillance achieved its highest impact factor ever, with a figure of 21, and it now ranks fifth among the journals in its field. The journal is now also signatory to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) publishers’ compact and, as such, is committed to promoting articles and initiatives contributing to the achievement of the health-related SDG Goal 3.

As part of the targeted country support work of the Centre, an initiative was launched to support the 11 Member States with COVID-19 vaccination uptake lower than the EU average. This included bilateral meetings between ECDC’s Director and the CCB directors, national coordinators, and National Focal Points (NFPs) for Vaccinepreventable diseases and Immunisation (VPI), virtual exchange of information and webinars with the practitioners and experts in the Member States, and a training pilot course on increasing vaccination acceptance for frontline healthcare workers.

The projects funded through European Commission grants continued: ‘Preparatory measures for the participation of the Western Balkans and Türkiye in the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control with special focus on One-Health against AMR and enhanced SARI surveillance, 2020–2024’; ‘EU Initiative on Health Security’ and ‘EU for health security in Africa: ECDC for Africa CDC’.