Public health: network for epidemiological surveillance and control of communicable diseases in the European Community EWRS

In its amended proposal following the opinion of Parliament at second reading, the Commission has incorporated in full or in part 17 of the 22 amendments adopted on 14 January 1998. These amendments aim in particular: - to provide that the costs resulting from operation of the network at Community level should be met from specific Community resources (and not as provided by the Council from existing Community programmes); - to define the procedures to ensure adequate consultation and coordination between the Member States with a view to not only monitoring but also controlling the spread of communicable diseases, - in the context of epidemiological surveillance, to gather comparable and compatible data, - to consider the list annexed to the decision of communicable diseases to be monitored as obligatory rather than indicative (particularly in emergency epidemic situations), -immediately to inform the authorities of all the Member States, via the Community network, of the appearance of serious communicable diseases in the Community or originating in third countries, -to evaluate the effectiveness of the network every 5 years. The main amendments rejected by the Commission and considered essential by Parliament concern: - setting up an early warning system in the context of the surveillance network, -setting up 'Eurocentres' or national databanks on communicable diseases responsible for forwarding national data to a central Community surveillance body to be set up. �