title: Responding to the challenge of communicable disease in Europe.
abstract: In the 1960s and 1970s, communicable disease seemed a minor threat, but since then the emergence of new infections and the reemergence of old diseases has provoked a renewed focus on European communicable disease surveillance and control. A "network approach" among European countries has been successful in detecting some international outbreaks, but management and funding aspects remain unresolved. Surveillance outside the European Union has faced new challenges as a result of economic and political change following the collapse of communism. Subsequently, innovative international surveillance schemes are currently being implemented in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The challenge for surveillance in Europe is to ensure that it has the capacity to meet both the needs of today and the diseases of the future.
authors.affiliation: European Observatory on Health Care Systems, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Keppel Street, London, WC1E 7HT, UK.
authors.forename: Laura
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: MacLehose
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: McKee
authors.forename: Julius
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Weinberg
mesh_terms: D003140:Communicable Disease Control / Q000191:economics; D003141:Communicable Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology*; D004196:Disease Outbreaks; D005060:Europe / Q000453:epidemiology; D005061:Europe, Eastern / Q000453:epidemiology; D005062:European Union; D006801:Humans; D011159:Population Surveillance