Sir

The US Centers for Disease Control (CDC), in Atlanta, Georgia, are a federal organization with two missions: disease control and research. Its size (several thousand people) and centralized concept make it a powerful tool for addressing the challenge of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases (ERID), through one of its main departments, the National Center for Control of Infectious Diseases.

There are no comparable structures to the CDC in Europe. Nevertheless, such a centralized centre could boost and coordinate European efforts to research and control these diseases. Although networks can help, they are no substitute for a real centre, with researchers from different countries interacting daily. The European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN) and the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) are successful examples. The proposed centre, whose title might be European Centre for Control of Infectious Diseases (ECCID), should have a similar international status.

Apart from control and epidemiological surveillance, ECCID should have the following components. First, basic research, because medicine no longer controls the ERID problem. Second, training. Third, strong connections with developing countries, in which the ERID problem is especially devastating. ECCID should coordinate its efforts with the World Health Organization and with national structures such as the London School of Tropical Medicine in Britain and the Instituts Pasteurs d'Outre-Mer and ORSTOM in France, which have a long experience of collaborative research in developing countries.