Annual Meeting of National ECDC Correspondents and MediPIET National Focal Points

The meeting gave participants the chance to review past activities, discuss outcomes and achievements, and plan activities for 2025.The first day of the meeting was dedicated to capacity-building activities in epidemic intelligence, risk assessment, preparedness, and response. ECDC updated participants on the new ECDC mandate before discussing the progress of the EU Initiative on Health Security and its mid-term evaluation. 

After the presentations, participants engaged in discussions and group work, where they identified health security challenges in their own countries and came up with suggestions on areas where ECDC and the Initiative could help mitigate those threats and be of added value.

Afternoon sessions focused on knowledge-sharing, networking, and integration into ECDC systems. Highlights included a presentation on the new exchange of expert’s programme, designed to facilitate the sharing of expertise within various ECDC disease networks and foster collaboration and new partnerships between EU Member States and partner countries. Attendees also learned about the ECDC’s Scientific Methods and Standards and the ongoing communication and visibility activities to promote the Initiative.

On the second day, ECDC presented the status of planned activities for the Mediterranean and Black Sea Programme for Intervention Epidemiology Training (MediPIET). This was followed by updates from the MediPIET Training Centre’s Forum's thematic working groups.

National Focal Points reviewed the MediPIET curriculum, drawing insights from the ECDC Fellowship process and the MediPIET training needs assessment. Breakout sessions continued the curriculum review, examining concepts, core and elective components, and the transition to R.

The meeting concluded with a plenary discussion summarising the insights and lessons learned. The gathering served as an excellent platform for project updates, knowledge exchange, and networking. 

EU Initiative on Health Security

The EU Initiative on Health Security (2020-2025) aims to establish a regional workforce responsible for preventing and controlling challenges posed by communicable diseases and enhancing regional cooperation to tackle cross-border health security threats in EU candidate and potential candidates and European Neighbourhood Policy partner countries.

The Initiative consists of four work packages:

• Work Package 1: Workforce-oriented capacity-building (MediPIET)
• Work Package 2: Epidemic intelligence, risk assessment, preparedness, and response
• Work Package 3: Integration into ECDC systems, knowledge-sharing, and networking
• Work Package 4: Project management, communication, visibility, and cross-cutting actions