WHO and the Global Outbreak and Response Network: coordinated surveillance to combat infectious diseases

On 5 December 2001 Eurosurveillance Weekly reported on the second meeting of the World Health Organization (WHO)’s Global Outbreak and Response Network (GOARN), which was held on 29-30 November in Geneva (1). A review in the Lancet Infectious Diseases provides extensive background reading to this WHO venture, which was inaugurated in April 2000 by WHO’s Department of Communicable Disease Surveillance and Response (CSR, http://www.who.int/emc/pdfs/csr%20strategyE.pdf) to respond to the resurgence of the microbial threat