Introduction

In 1997 an Inventory of resources and means for controlling communicable diseases in EU MS was carried out in 15 EU Member States and Norway and Switzerland under a contract awarded by EC-DG V to the Italian Istituto Superiore di Sanità.
That Inventory resulted in a computerised database in three languages on CD-ROM, an international Workshop, a technical report with an overview of the major collected information translated in 11 languages and printed in 10,500 copies for distribution across Europe.

Although the Inventory provided a helpful tool for describing and evaluating the different resources on control of communicable diseases in Europe, its major limitation was in the lack of subsequent updates due to the technology used for the dissemination of results (CD-ROM and hard copies).

In the year 2000 the EU DG SANCO has agreed to support the present project entitled Expanded Inventory of resources on Infectious Diseases Control co-ordinated by the Italian Istituto Superiore di Sanità.

The objective of the present project is to update the existing database of European inventory on resources for Infectious Diseases Control, to expand the coverage to the countries candidate to join in the future the European Union, to make the entire and updated database available on a web site accessible to all Member States and participating countries.
The new project is also intended to provide a simple system for continuous updating of the collected information through a network of national gatekeepers each in charge of revising the specific part of the database or add information.

Results of the Inventory will be included in the EU-IDA EUPHIN (European Union Public Health Information Network) and HSSCD (Health Surveillance System on Communicable Diseases.
The EUPHIN databases will support the exchange/ increase availability of relevant information, to monitor health status in the community, to facilitate planning, monitoring and evaluation of Community programmes and actions, provide Community institutions, Member States with comparative information to monitor and develop national policies, to enable early warning of CD outbreaks, to co-ordinate response, to identify source, to monitor evolution of epidemics, to inform administrative and policy making tasks.
The databases are therefore targeted to community, member states and professionals as users.
The present Inventory will be one reference database among the EUPHIN applications.

The software and the web-site for this Project are developed by CINECA, a non profit Consortium of 15 Italian Universities for Advanced Computing.