The Dubrovnik pledge on surveillance and prioritization of infectious diseases : report on a WHO meeting, Bucharest, Romania 21-23 November 2002

Abstract

The Meeting was held to help carry out a project on communicable diseases in the seven countries in south-eastern Europe that signed the Dubrovnik Pledge. Experts from these countries went through a Delphi-like exercise in selecting a prioritized list of diseases to be included in a common surveillance system. The participants formed working groups to develop national plans of action to address problems in developing capacity for infectious disease investigation and diagnosis and developing political support. In addition, they were requested to form national working groups in their countries to assess the discussions held during the meeting, to review national requirements for communicable disease surveillance and to develop plans for future activities. In general, the participants agreed that assigning priorities to communicable diseases was a necessary first step to establishing collaboration on controlling them, and several presented plans for doing so in 2003. They also presented draft plans of action to address issues raised during the meeting, including carrying out prioritization exercises, developing standard case definitions and laboratory methods, reviewing training requirements and establishing political support for initiatives to control communicable diseases