New chair of the Council for European State Epidemiologists for Communicable Diseases (CESE) outlines some immediate challenges

For almost 10 years now, there has been close cooperation between the national structures responsible for infectious disease surveillance in the European Union (EU). This work was first formalised when the heads of EU surveillance units, with support from the European Commission, produced a charter for surveillance across the EU. This group has since continued a very fruitful exchange of ideas and initiatives under the slightly misleading name of the Charter Group. In April this year, the group decided to go one step further, and to set up a more formal Council of European State Epidemiologists for Communicable Disease (CESE). Led by the outgoing chairman, Professor Pauli Leinikki of KTL, the National Public Health Institute of Finland, the CESE group has developed a Strategy for Development of Surveillance and Control of Communicable Diseases in the European Union 2003-2008 (http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/pri/en/lip/latest/doc/2002/com2002_0029en01.doc).