Presentation from the ECDC 14th NMFP meeting organised by the European Centre of Disease Prevention and Control - Stockholm, 12 - 13 May 2016

1. Feedback from the NMFP on
Member States actions
14th National Microbiology Focal Points meeting
Amanda Ozin, Senior Expert, Office of the Chief Scientist
European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control
14th NMFP, Stockholm, 12-13 May 2016

2. 1
Method to receive feedback for NMFP14
• Prepared questions (open and closed) using “EUSurvey” tool
• Sent to NMFPs April 28th by NMFP newsletter and follow-up
emails with link and password
• Requested replies by May 5th
• Questions covered:
− Dissemination and use of EULabCap reports (2013 data)
− Suggestions for future capacity building support
• TODAY - Presentation of feedback to stimulate discussion!

3. 2
“Impact survey” on the EULabCap reports
• Response rate: 22/30 (70%) NMFPs
• Dissemination: EU and Country reports (2013 data):
− 21/22 disseminated the reports in their country
• Usefulness: Country reports
− 21/22 replied “YES” the country reports were useful and
provided helpful comments for further improvements;
− 15/22 indicated practical use of the country report in
indicated areas for attention
• Suggestions for follow-up and improvements
− 21/22 provided at least 1 suggestion (ca. 60 comments in
total).

4. 3
Thank you for your contribution!
…. and we will leave the survey open for a week for
anyone that would still like to contribute ideas

5. 4
How were the EULabCap reports (2013 data)
disseminated in your country?
21/22 NMFPs disseminated the reports
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18
Other way(s) of dissemination
Did not disseminate the report(s)
Shared/made available nationally
Translated into national language (partially or fully)
Discussed with microbiologists involved in public
health
Discussed with infectious disease epidemiologists
Communicated to decision makers
Dissemination to: EU report Country report Both
Number of NMFP

6. 5
Did you find the EULabCap individual
country report (2013 data) useful?
• Yes = 21
• No = 1
• Please explain (21/22 replies)
− “It is always useful, although often not nice, to see our
deficiencies at European background”

7. 6
Did you follow-up on any of the suggested
areas of attention from the EULabCap
individual country report (2013 data)?
*15/22 NMFPs indicated action in areas of attention of the country report
Area of attention
Follow-up
action*
(n=22)
No follow-up action 7
NRL accreditation 6
Biosafety regulation and monitoring 5
Regulation of NRL services (e.g. appointments and operations) 5
Resource allocation to NRL services (e.g. funding, staffing, equipment) 5
Clinical laboratory accreditation 4
Diagnostic testing guidance development 4
Sharing molecular typing data via TESSy 4
Diagnostic test use rate measurement (priority diseases) 3
Regulation of clinical microbiology laboratories 2
Diagnostic testing guidance compliance measurement 2
Automation of reporting laboratory data to public health surveillance databases 2
Other follow-up action(s) 2
Involvement of NRL experts in national outbreak investigations 1

8. 7
Country report use (14 comments)
• Benchmarking with other EU countries (6/14)
• Areas for attention and strengths particularly useful (8/14)
• Some examples :
– “Acknowledging and discussing problems for planning
future actions and reassurance of strengths”
– “Framework for improvements (e.g. quality NRLs)”
– “Focus on low capability areas…”
– “Broad overview of national situation”
– “Design/evaluation of national performance indicators”
– “Systematic way to monitor change annually”

9. 8
Report follow-up (6 comments)
• ECDCs role in supporting NMFP advocate areas of attention
to decision makers and national laboratory community
• Examples :
– “ECDC active approach to decision makers in MS would be
useful in cases where clear that major improvements are
needed … in legislation, nominations of reference
institutions, preparations of different national plans...”.
– “Strongly recommend ECDC support MS focal points
(epi+lab) to be active members of working groups in the
MoH (…to influence decision making and working plans)”
– “Strongly advise decision makers to accomplish agreed
tasks”

10. 9
In your opinion, which areas could ECDC
develop new activities in addressing
generic laboratory capacity/capability
issues?
• 21/22 respondents provided at least 1 suggestion
• ca. 60 comments in total that were grouped for presentation
as follows:
− Information Broker;
− Technical support and advice;
− Strategy and advocacy;
− No areas (as of yet);

11. 10
ECDC To Do list:
Information broker
• Repository of information
− “Twinning projects between laboratories of different
countries”
− “Develop catalogue of lab tests available in EU
laboratories…EULabServe progress”
• Recommendations on best practices
− “Collaboration between epidemiological structures and
laboratories for outbreak investigation, surveillance of
VPD and vector-borne infections, molecular epidemiology”

12. 11
ECDC To Do list:
Technical support and advice
• Public health application of molecular methods
– “assist with the transition to whole genome sequencing
• NRLs and EQAs
− “assess regional/supranational cooperation; twinning
programmes especially for rare pathogens”
− “updating existing EQA and need for new schemes”
• Technology assessment
– “Collaboration with agencies involved in monitoring quality
of IVD reagents and/or make the recommendation for the
NRLs to develop such activities”

13. 12
ECDC To Do list:
Strategy and advocacy
• “Encourage countries to take a proactive role on areas
where improvement clearly needed”
• “Highlight to EU decision makers where the weaknesses lie
in ability to respond to new and emerging threats”
• “Develop an ECDC action plan at EU level”
• “Establishment of various working groups with all MS to
better use collected micro and epi data”
• “Link more closely the results of EULabCap back to the
laboratory networks funded by EU”

14. 13
No need for additional ECDC work
• “Time to cope with the recognized <needs > in our
country”
• “Time to digest information and execute NMFP role”
• “Finalize first those actions that are already started” (data
analysis and feedback to countries for use – e.g. Listeria
typing by NGS …)

15. Impact of the EULabCap 2013
report - Press and social media
Session 5 – part 2
Signe Gilbro, Communication Officer Web and Social Media,
Public Health Capacity and Communication Unit
European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control
14th NMFP, Stockholm, 12-13 May 2016

16. 15
Technical Report Publication
• Facts:
– In top 25 ECDC publications
during February 2016
– Accessed via Google and links
in targeted e-mails
Visitors also came from: EC,
Eurosurveillance and ESCV

17. 16
News item
• Facts:
− Among the top 15 ECDC News items in February 2016
− Around 600 views and 490 visitors
− Accessed via links on Twitter, targeted e-mails, Google
and LinkedIn

18. 17
EULabCap page with maps
• Facts:
– Ranking high among ECDC
pages
– 1059 page views, 426
visitors (Top 81 out of 2000)
– Accessed via Google, e-mails,
LinkedIn, Twitter,
Eurosurveillance and
eucast.org

19. 18
Social media – LinkedIn

20. 19
Social media - Twitter
• Facts:
– Popularity: Lot of people clicked to get to the news item
and maps page
– Who retweeted? Mostly public health agencies, journalists,
doctors, microbiologists, professors, biotechnology
companies, scientists

21. 20
Lessons learned
• Main professional audience reached via social media
activities and targeted e-mails
• Continued update of maps page
• Media attention low
• To reach a wider audience:
– Policy briefing for policy makers
– Peer review paper

22. 21
Thank you for listening,
ECDC.Microbiology@ecdc.europa.eu

23. 22
Discussion
 Questions? Comments?
 Reflections on needs for follow-up capacity
building?