History
As EU economic integration and open frontiers increased, cooperation on public health issues became more important. While the idea of creating a European CDC had been discussed previously by public health experts, the outbreak of SARS in 2003 and its rapid spread across countries confirmed the urgency of the creation of an EU-wide institution for public health. ECDC was set up in record time for an EU agency: the European Commission presented draft legislation in July 2003, by the spring of 2004 ECDC’s Founding Regulation had been passed and by the spring of 2005 the Centre started operating. As it started its activities, another threat – H5N1 avian influenza arriving in the EU’s neighbourhood and the fear that it could adapt or mutate into a pandemic strain of human influenza – confirmed the relevance of its mission.
Read more about this topic: European Centre For Disease Prevention And Control
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Don’t you realize that this is a new empire? Why, folks, there’s never been anything like this since creation. Creation, huh, that took six days, this was done in one. History made in an hour. Why it’s a miracle out of the Old Testament!”
—Howard Estabrook (1884–1978)
“the future is simply nothing at all. Nothing has happened to the present by becoming past except that fresh slices of existence have been added to the total history of the world. The past is thus as real as the present.”
—Charlie Dunbar Broad (1887–1971)
“Spain is an overflow of sombreness ... a strong and threatening tide of history meets you at the frontier.”
—Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957)