ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS AND COMMUNICABLE DISEASE SURVEILLANCE AT THE NATIONAL LEVEL IN THE EUROPEAN-UNION

As a result of the communicable disease threats posed by international travel and trade, collaboration between centres undertaking surveilla nce has developed, This has been successful in identifying outbreaks i nvolving more than one country, Collaboration involving the exchange a nd sharing of data is dependent upon an effective infrastructure, in p articular the access to reliable secure communications, Within the Eur opean Union the telematic infrastructure to support communicable disea se surveillance is being developed, The future users have undertaken a survey of needs to guide the development of this infrastructure. Thei r needs include access to reliable secure e-mail, to European datasets which could be interrogated on-line and to directories of experts, A network is now under development.