UNITED4Surveillance

UNITED4Surveillance is an EU4Health Joint Action with 40 partners from all across Europe. The Joint Action started in January 2023 and will run until 31 December 2025. The National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) of the Netherlands coordinates this project.

The global crisis generated by the COVID-19 outbreak has revealed an urgent need for improvement in public health preparedness and pandemic response at the European level. UNITED4Surveillance will contribute to implementation of the new Health Security framework under the EU regulation on serious cross-border threats to health (2022/2371). This Joint Action will also support implementation of the long-term strategic framework for the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) in 2022–2025. The focus will be on integrating existing and new data sources for more comprehensive EU/EEA infectious disease surveillance, prevention and control. In doing so, UNITED4Surveillance will contribute to surveillance capacity-building within Europe and beyond, working to improve global health security.

The project aims to strengthen infectious disease surveillance systems at the national level within the areas of the three core technical work packages: Outbreak detection (WP2), hospital surveillance (WP3), and One Health surveillance (WP4).

SSI is involved in WP2 with a focus on the tasks 1) Improving Laboratory-Based Reporting and 2) Outbreak & Signal Detection. SSI also participates in WP4 in tasks on foodborne diseases and zoonotic influenza.

UNITED4Surveillance will propose a roadmap to implementation of integrated surveillance at Member State and Union level, which will cover the following aspects:

• gaps and needs analysis of current surveillance practices
• integration of (inter)national polices
• pilots of promising approaches to improve current surveillance
• dissemination of best practices, and
• sharing of experiences and knowledge through capacity building.

UNITED4Surveillance