12th European Food-and Waterborne Diseases and Zoonoses Network (FWD-Net) meeting
On 18 September 2023, 13 designated experts from the Western Balkans and Türkiye attended the 12th FWD-Net meeting at the European Chemical Agency (ECHA) in Helsinki, Finland.
The food and water-borne diseases experts from these non-EU countries actively participated in discussions together with experts from EU/EEA countries on current topics related to the surveillance of and response to foodborne disease outbreaks in the EU/EEA.
The meeting was an opportunity to promote networking and cross-sectoral collaboration between public health and food safety sectors at the national, EU and global levels as well as to promote the use of integrated whole genome sequence-based systems within ECDC and EFSA in order to support countries in their response to national, EU-wide and global foodborne outbreaks.
Background
FWD-Net is coordinated by ECDC with the support of a coordination committee consisting of representatives from the EU Member States. The committee advises ECDC on ways to strengthen and improve FWD surveillance and prevention in Europe, and reviews technical documents relevant to the network.
FWD-Net also collaborates with partners, such as the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), the World Health Organization, relevant European Union Reference Laboratories, and public health authorities of non-EU countries, such as US CDC.
