Infokiri

Dear National Coordinator,

Dear colleagues,

With reference to our request below, unfortunately, according to our Stakeholder Relation Management (SRM) system, since June 2023, we still have not received any OCP for entomology nominations from you.

This is becoming now urgent, as we are happy to announce that a new joint framework contract for medical and veterinary entomology (VectorNet) has been signed last week, and that the first One-Health VectorNet Entomological Network (OHVEN) annual meeting is planned for 29 – 31 October 2024. From each country, one OCP entomology, as well as the country’s member of EFSA’s Network for Veterinary Entomology (NVE) will be invited to participate in this annual meeting. With this new structure, we will discontinue the old VectorNet network, and we would no longer have a medical entomology expert participating from your country.

Therefore, could you please, at your earliest convenience, but before 26 June 2024, nominate at least one OCP for entomology in the ECDC SRM system? Ideally, we would like to have experts in mosquitoes, ticks, and / or sandflies (please indicate their expertise in one or more of these vector groups). In case you have trouble identifying a suitable candidate for this role, we recommend nominating the previous entomology (VectorNet) VEN member listed furthest below in our original email from June 2023.

We realise that this person may not necessarily be affiliated to your national public health service, but, from ECDC’s side, we would like to emphasize that we have no requirements on affiliation, and also nominations with affiliation to e.g. academia are perfectly acceptable to us*. As this person is already in our system, we could assist you by adding the OCP for entomology role, once we have your confirmation.

*All OCPs will be required to make a declaration of interest.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Best regards,

ECDC EVD team & ECDC Executive Office/Governance

To: National Coordinators

Copy: National Coordinators Alternate, National Focal Points for Emerging and Vector-borne diseases

Reference: Nomination of OCPs for microbiology and OCPs for entomology

Dear National Coordinator,

Dear colleagues,

With a One Health approach, ECDC is aiming to strengthen the cohesion between the EVD network, EVD-LabNet and VectorNet network members. The EVD network is currently composed of the National Focal Points for EVDs and the OCP epidemiology and OCP microbiology for EVDs. EVD-LabNet is a network of virologists (from 65 laboratories) and VectorNet is a network of medical and veterinary entomologists that is jointly administered by ECDC and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). Both EVD-LabNet and VectorNet networks are coordinated by a contractor.

The EVD network members are defined by the CCB structure and are nominated by the National Coordinators; the EVD-LabNet and VectorNet networks are not described in the CCB structure and appointments of members of these two networks does not follow any official nomination procedure by National Coordinators.

To facilitate the integration of the EVD-LabNet and VectorNet network members into ECDC routine activities, we would like to formalise their roles: We would like you to consider, for your country, whether the current EVD-LabNet network members could become OCP microbiology and whether the current VectorNet network members could become OCP entomology, which is a newly created role. If you consider that they can be, please nominate them as OCPs according to the dedicated process in SRM. In addition, or instead, you may nominate further persons for these OCP roles. We note that, for the moment, EVD-LabNet network members and VectorNet network members who are not nominated to become OCPs will continue to be part of these respective networks.

OCPs microbiology

The role and responsibilities of the OCPs for microbiology are, as already described in the CCB document:

• Provide information about the current status of laboratory capacities for the specific disease / disease group and keep it up to date; 

• When available and legally possible, ensure flow of national laboratory surveillance data to OCP for TESSy interactions for upload to TESSy; or, Ensure upload of national laboratory data to TESSy according to permissions by NC, and/or NFP (when available and legally possible);

• Encourage participation of the national reference centre (or laboratory with equivalent function) in EQA schemes sponsored by ECDC;

• Collaborate closely with microbiology OCPs from other countries as specified by ECDC grant or service contracts, as required.

• Otherwise interact with ECDC on issues related to the microbiology of specific pathogens as appropriate from a national context.

OCP microbiology are nominated for each of the following viral diseases: Arenavirus diseases, chikungunya virus disease, Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever, dengue, filovirus infection, hantavirus infection, Lyssavirus infection, mpox, Rift valley fever, smallpox, tick-borne encephalitis, West Nile virus infection, yellow fever and Zika virus infection.

In addition, OCP microbiology can be nominated for the following bacterial and parasitic diseases (not covered by EVD-LabNet): Lyme neuroborreliosis, malaria, plague, Q-fever and tularaemia.

OCPs entomology

The role and responsibilities of the OCPs for entomology are to:

• Represent the public health sector as contact point for medical entomological matters in their country;

• Provide entomological expertise to ECDC (and the European Food Safety Authority - EFSA) to assist in risk assessment activities;

• Ensure the provision of vector surveillance data to maintain and continue development of a pan-European database on vector distribution, abundance and seasonality;

• Facilitate the exchange of essential vector-borne diseases surveillance data (host, pathogen, vector) between data providers and ECDC (and EFSA);

• Facilitate the communication between national health authorities and the local entomologists in their country.

You can find below the list of EVD-LabNet and VectorNet network members for your consideration. You are welcome to nominate other experts, as relevant. Please note that since VectorNet is a joint ECDC-EFSA network, some of the current network members are from the veterinary sector. However, OCP entomology should only represent the public health sector.  For each of these two roles, we suggest that you nominate from 1 to up to 3 individuals. You may decide to nominate the same person for several diseases/vector groups.

Please note that the nomination process should be done in SRM at your earliest convenience preferable by end of August 2023.

Thank you very much for your kind attention to this matter. Should you have any queries please feel free to get in touch with us by email [email protected], and for assistance regarding the nominations in SRM by email [email protected].

Yours sincerely,

ECDC EVD team & ECDC Executive Office/Governance