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Health: Risk Assessment
The first step in responding to an emerging cross-border health threat is to assess its magnitude and associated risks. It is important to know:
- Origin: What is the disease or chemical causing the outbreak?
- Transmission: How is it spread? (e.g., air-borne like influenza, foodborne like salmonella, or spread by mosquitoes like Zika)
- Consequences: What are the effects on human health? (e.g., pneumonia, neurological impact, etc.)
- Lethality: How severe or deadly is the disease?
These factors determine the possible options for response. With novel diseases (as seen in COVID-19), planning may be required even before answers to all these questions are available.
The Regulation (EU) 2022/2371 sets out coordinated EU mechanisms for risk assessment, mobilising expertise from relevant EU and international bodies to provide scientific advice for crisis response.
Which agencies perform a risk assessment?
- European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC): biological threats, infectious diseases, antimicrobial resistance, and unknown origin.
- European Medicines Agency (EMA): threats linked to medicinal products and medical devices.
- European Food Safety Authority (EFSA): serious cross-border threats related to food safety.
- European Chemicals Agency (ECHA): chemical or environmental threats.
- European Environment Agency (EEA): environmental threats, including climate-related.
- European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA): chemical threats under its mandate.
- Europol: threats from terrorism or criminal activity, often in cooperation with EMA.
- European Commission: provides ad hoc risk assessments where threats fall outside agency mandates.
- World Health Organization (WHO): input considered in cases of international public health emergencies.
