Training workshop ‘Detection and assessment of public health threats in the European Union’ and briefing on ECDC`s preparedness and response activitiesArchived

ECDC organises a briefing on its preparedness and response activities, combined with a workshop ‘Detection and assessment of public health threats in the European Union’.  The training is aimed at professionals involved in early warning and response activities at national or regional level in the EU and EEA/EFTA countries.

The objective of the course is to share ECDC`s expertise on threat detection, assessment and response with public health experts that can conduct threat assessments and be part of outbreak investigation teams both at national and EU level. Basic experience in surveillance and field outbreak investigation, good knowledge and experience in early warning systems, risk assessment and field investigations, as well as intermediate level of English are prerequisites for participation.

The training begins with an introduction to ECDC, including an overview of its mandate and the role of the preparedness and response activities.

The representatives of each unit will present specific threat detection activities, such as daily monitoring of epidemic intelligence (EI) sources, application of specific criteria, documentation of relevant updates and actions in a dedicated Threat Tracking Tool (TTT). The experts will also take part in daily roundtable meetings.

In addition, detailed briefing sessions are to be held on the functioning of the Emergency Operations Centre (EOC), its role during public health events, as well as the mobilization of an Outbreak Assistance Teams (OAT). The EOC staff will discuss the EOC material that could be provided in case of an OAT deployment and explain the standard operating procedures on OAT mobilisation.

Registrations will be submitted to the Competent Bodies of each of the EU Member States for review. The Competent Bodies will advise ECDC on the priority of candidates for this activity. ECDC will inform the selected candidates early February of the final result of the selection process.

Deadline for registration: 21 January 2011

Deadline for applications is closed

At present there are 20 seats available. A similar workshop is due to be held in October 2011.