NEW CENTRE FOR DISEASE PREVENTION AND CONTROL GETS GO-AHEAD.

The Council of Ministers agreed, on March 31, to set up a new European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). This follows on from a proposal from the European Commission to create a new centralised organisation for monitoring and controlling the spread of disease (see issue 2796). The ECDC is expected to be up and running in 2005, and will be based in Stockholm in Sweden.

The ECDC will enable Europe to pool its disease control expertise more effectively, allowing disease outbreak investigation teams to be put together quickly and efficiently. The Centre will ensure the results of these investigations are available to public authorities around the EU, and will produce authoritative...