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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. Read the implementing regulation.
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.
