ESCMID ECDC Observerships


1 - 5 September 2014, Stockholm, Sweden

Report 2014

This year in September, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) hosted ten ESCMID members as part of the ESCMID ECDC Observership initiative. Their visit took place jointly with Observers from the European Society for Clinical Virology (ESCV) and Fellows from the European Programme for Public Health Microbiology Training (EUPHEM). During their five-day stays at ECDC, the Observers were introduced to the Centre’s mission, history and core operations. The programme covered a variety of topics, including surveillance and epidemic intelligence, antimicrobial resistance, vaccine-preventable diseases, sexually-transmitted infections, as well as cross-disciplinary areas such as burden of diseases and evidence-based approaches to public health. In several “hands-on” exercises, the Observers were involved in producing a rapid risk assessment on an infectious disease threat, in analysing EU molecular surveillance data, in using data from the European Burden of Communicable Disease project to make informed public health decisions, and other exercises. They had an opportunity to observe the daily analysis of epidemic intelligence information and present and discuss their work with guest speakers, peers and ECDC colleagues.
The ESCMID Observers to ECDC this year were from Greece, Turkey, the Netherlands, Romania, United Kingdom, Spain, Australia and Nepal. Their visit reports are accessible from the ECDC Collaborative Centre profile webpage. This is the second year of the ESCMID ECDC Observership initiative