1. Home
  2. About us
  3. What we do

ECDC’s mission and main activities

Milestones of ECDC's work

ECDC’s main role as an agency of the European Union is to strengthen Europe’s defences against communicable diseases. In its first ten years, ECDC worked together with all EU/EEA countries in response to public health threats and emerging diseases.

Read about ECDC's achievements

Mission

ECDC's mission is to identify, assess and communicate current and emerging threats to human health posed by infectious diseases.

Country support

ECDC’s country support foresees "well-coordinated capacities across Europe to effectively prevent, detect, assess and control communicable diseases that threaten the health of the European population."

Epidemic intelligence and outbreak response

Monitoring and assessing threats to public health in Europe from infectious diseases are core tasks for ECDC, as is providing technical support to the EU-level response to such threats.

Health communication

The Centre communicates on its own initiative in the fields within its mission, after having given prior information to the Member States and to the Commission.

Microbiology

Microbiology is the study of micro-organisms, including those that are causing infectious diseases.

Preparedness

ECDC supports the Member States and the European Commission in monitoring, identifying and responding to serious cross-border health threats.

Public health training

ECDC training activities are focused in three areas: training programmes in intervention epidemiology, country support, and virtual tools for public health training.

Surveillance

Scientific advice

ECDC Scientific advice provides a summary of primary evidence acknowledging uncertainties to support informed decisions and actions at the Union and country level in relation to public health measures to prevent and/or control communicable diseases