Preparedness and Response

In 2020, the public health emergency preparedness and response work was exclusively directed to supporting the European Commission and EU/EEA Member States and the UK to undertake actions to prevent the spread of SARS-CoV-2 and reduce the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic to the health of the European population.

For this reason, the Centre initiated the development of a focused protocol for review of an evidence-based decision-making process for COVID-19. Involving communities in preparedness and response planning at a very early stage, as well as in evaluation process after events has been highlighted to be an important element of emergency public health preparedness and response work.

It should be noted that the work organised in previous years to assess preparedness for bio-risk awareness and biosafety by means of simulation exercises and expert meetings, contributed to improved expert collaboration between several sectors: public health, law enforcement and civil protection. Establishing foundations for closer inter-sectorial collaboration at the EU level proved to be important in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic response. Moreover, ECDC provided input in the initial discussions on the new joint action plan on terror attacks, an initiative of the European Commission and Member States.

In 2020, two missions including two ECDC experts each, were organised to support Italy and Greece during the initial stages of the pandemic in their respective countries. The first one was a joint WHO-ECDC mission from 24 February to 3 March, the second from 5 to 15 March with the purpose of providing technical support to the Greek Ministry of Health and the National Public Health Organisation for the management of the outbreak of COVID-19 in the country.

To support the investigation of multi-country outbreaks, ECDC further developed a new survey tool which helps Member States design questionnaires on threats and outbreaks that follow a common format, so that affected countries can exchange information more efficiently.

In addition, ECDC worked closely with the European Commission on donor selection and safety issues, in developing and regularly updating a guide for COVID-19 convalescent plasma collection and transfusion.