Annual report of the Director 2015

2015 was the second year of implementation for ECDC’s Strategic Multi-annual Programme 2014–2020 (SMAP) and of the implementation of Decision 1082/2013/EU on serious cross-border health threats. Significant progress was achieved on both priorities. ECDC delivered more than 86% of the outputs promised in its Work Programme for 2015. Many of these outputs link to implementation of Decision 1082/2013, and all of them link to SMAP.

Ebola epidemic: The Ebola epidemic that emerged in West Africa in March 2014 – and declared a Public Health Event of International Concern by WHO in August 2014 – was the first emergency event addressed by ECDC and its partners under Decision 1082/2013 and SMAP. ECDC played an important role in supporting the EU-level and international response to Ebola. ECDC activated its Public Health Emergency plan in August 2014 in order to mobilise maximum resources. In November 2014, while Guinea was still experiencing a significant number of local Ebola outbreaks, the US Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization requested ECDC to support surveillance control activities in Guinea through the deployment of French-speaking experts. In December 2014, ECDC sent the first experts to Guinea. All ECDC expert deployments were coordinated through WHO’s Global Outbreak and Response Network (GOARN) and coordinated with the European Commission. The mission officially ended in October 2015. All in all, ECDC mobilised 89 experts for deployment in West Africa since August 2014.

Follow-up of the Second Independent External Evaluation of ECDC: In June 2015, the Management Board adopted a set of recommendations for action based on the external evaluation. As a response, ECDC developed a Joint Action Plan that was approved by the Management Board in November 2015 and will be implemented from 2016 onwards to bring about further concrete improvements to the work of the Centre.

• Primary Source

ECDC: Achievements, challenges and major outputs 2015, Highlights from the Annual Report of the Director https://ecdc.europa.eu/en/publications-data/achievements-challenges-and-major-outputs-2015-highlights-annual-report-director

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