ECDC website

Who we are

The ECDC Mission

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‘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

The new ECDC 2021-2027 strategy is structured into five strategic 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 that the COVID-19 pandemic continued representing in 2021, ECDC managed to produce most of its regular outputs:

  • ECDC updated its Surveillance Atlas of Infectious Diseases with 2020 data and published 30 Annual Epidemiological Report chapters covering 2018, 2019 and 2020;
  • Regular epidemiological updates for threats under mid- and long-term monitoring were published on the ECDC website through the weekly Communicable Diseases Threats Report (CDTR);
  • ECDC continued producing independent and evidence-based scientific advice. The Centre published 74 technical reports/guidance documents and 74 peer-reviewed articles in scientific journals;
  • Training of cohorts 2020 and 2021 of the ECDC Fellowship Programme was delivered as planned. In 2021, 33 fellows graduated. At year’s end, 71 fellows were enrolled (33 from cohort 2020 and 38 from cohort 2021);
  • All ECDC hallmark events were successfully organised: the ESCAIDE conference (16-19 November), with the highest number of registrations to date; the digital campaign marking the European Antibiotic Awareness Day (18 November); the ECDC session at the European Health Forum Gastein 2021 (28 September).

In the area of surveillance, ECDC concluded the four-year EPHESUS project after 50 EU/EEA public health surveillance system evaluations, with findings that will be instrumental in developing EU/EEA surveillance standards.

The EpiPulse portal allowing ECDC and Member States users to perform all surveillance operations from one single entry point, was launched in June 2021.

In 2021, ECDC implemented automatic, electronic health record-based surveillance of Severe Acute Respiratory Infections (SARI) in seven EU/EEA Member States, with a view to continue implementing SARI surveillance in a larger number of countries, and to pilot this type of surveillance for other priority diseases.

2021 marked the 25th anniversary of the Eurosurveillance journal with various events and special edition publications.

As part of the targeted country support work of the Centre, an initiative aimed at supporting the 11 Member States with COVID-19 vaccination uptake lower than the EU average was initiated.

During 2021 ECDC participated actively in the implementation of the European Health Data Space, providing the European Commission with requirements for EU level surveillance and with a use case to be piloted in 2022. ECDC also started to prepare for the takeover of the European Federation Gateway Service, the technical backbone of the contact tracing apps used by Member States, initially implemented by the European Commission.

In the area of support to Western Balkan countries, Turkey and European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) countries, the projects funded with European Commission grants continued:

  • “Preparatory measures for the participation of the Western Balkans and Turkey in the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control with special focus on One-Health against anti-microbial resistance (AMR) and enhanced SARI surveillance, 2020–2024”
  • “EU Initiative on Health Security”.

In addition, the “EU for health security in Africa: ECDC for Africa CDC” project kicked-off in January 2021.

In the area of communication, ECDC continued having a high level of attention in media, social media and through its websites. The latest ECDC Communication Policy was developed and approved in 2021, with the purpose of defining the actions and lines of work of ECDC in the area of communication for the period 2022-2027.

ECDC held its Third Joint Strategy Meeting with key stakeholders in the period June-September 2021, with a series of fruitful discussions in the areas of digitalisation of EU surveillance, prevention, EU standards for emergency preparedness, ECDC’s role in the global health security and getting closer to EU Member States.