Background

Funding

European Commission Decision No 2119/98/EC on setting up a network for the epidemiological surveillance and control of communicable diseases in the European Union (EU) stated as a priority "Diseases prevented by vaccination". Haemophilus influenzae and Neisseria meningitidis are infections that come within this category.

The European Union Invasive Bacterial Infections Surveillance (EU-IBIS) project established surveillance networks within the EU for invasive H influenzae and N meningitidis disease in 2000. The overall aims of the project are to improve epidemiological information and laboratory capacity to characterise isolates of these two invasive bacterial infections within the EU.

The EU-IBIS project has been funded 1999 - 2006 by the European Union Health and Consumer Protection Directorate-General (DG Sanco), and further funding was received from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) which will ensure that the project runs until October 2007. The project has now transferred to ECDC, and up-to-date information can be found at the ECDC EU-IBIS site

History

The EU-IBIS networks were established with the assistance of existing networks within Europe. The H influenzae network used the existing framework from the BIOMED II Hib surveillance project. BIOMED II Hib was established in 9 EU countries and 2 non-EU countries in 1996-99 to describe the epidemiology of invasive H influenzae and describe the risk factors associated with vaccine failure using different vaccines and schedules.

The N meningitidis network built upon two existing networks. First, the European Monitoring Group on Meningococci (EMGM) was a consortium of reference microbiologists and epidemiologists working in Europe to exchange information on meningococcal infection. Second, the Bacterial Meningitis in Europe surveillance network (also known as European Bacterial Meningitis Surveillance Project, or EBMSP), which was established in 1988 by Norman Noah and colleagues with the aim of describing how the epidemiology of meningococcal disease varied across Europe, to inform best practice in vaccine and chemophylatic policy and to facilitate contacts between epidemiologists and microbiologists. The EBMSP 1999/2000 abridged report is available from the Reports page.