The IDCU is currently working on a number of EU Projects and Joint Actions (JAs).
1: MIDISS – Malta Infectious Diseases Integrated Surveillance System
This is part of the EU4Health Direct Grant for Member States to strengthen and improve national surveillance systems. MIDISS will include the acquisition of a cutting-edge Public Health Surveillance IT infrastructure equipped with automated and secure data loading from various sources, storage in a secure data warehouse, automated data transformation scripts, alongside an intuitive user dashboard for the visualisation and creation of routine and configurable ad-hoc surveillance outputs. Furthermore, vector-borne surveillance and translation services for case managers will be established within Malta. For further information please see the MIDISS dedicated webpage.
• Start date: January 2025; End date: December 2028
2: EU-WISH (EU-Wastewater Integrated Surveillance for Public Health)
The focus of EU-WISH is to support activities to strengthen and improve national capacities for wastewater public health surveillance by enhancing knowledge exchange and sharing best practices based on scientific evidence. To achieve this, a consortium consisting of 62 participants, which includes IDCU, has been established at European level to contribute to a vision and activities for wastewater monitoring not only at European but also at global level.
• Start date: November 2023; End date: October 2026
3: United4Surveillance - Joint Action on Union and National Capacity Building 4 IntegraTED Surveillance
The aim of the Joint Action (JA) is to provide resources for capacity building for Member States to strengthen integrated surveillance to ensure better detection of early warning signs and more accurate risk assessment and coordinated response among member states to any future cross-border health threats. The JA focuses primarily on outbreak detection/laboratory-based reporting, hospital surveillance, and One Health surveillance.
For more information, visit the Project website: https://united4surveillance.eu/
The Infectious Disease Prevention and Control Unit (IDCU) is participating in two work packages of this JA, namely:
WP2: Outbreak detection:
Under Task 2 “Outbreak and Signal Detection” Malta piloted a signal detection tool which generates signals based on national surveillance data and enables users to analyze these results using a dashboard with flexible exploration and generation of a report.
WP3: Hospital Surveillance:
The Malta pilot focused on developing automated surveillance of gastrointestinal illness and on developing a proposal for the implementation of a Public Health surveillance IT infrastructure that would allow secure, real-time, automated surveillance (MIDISS – Malta Infectious Disease Integrated Surveillance System)
• Start date: January 2023; End date: December 2025
4: EHR-SARI – Electronic Health Records (E-SURE)
The project aim is for ECDC to conduct the design and implementation of multinational surveillance systems using routinely collected electronic health records in EU/EEA. IDCU is specifically participating in the use of electronic health records to conduct SARI surveillance.
• Start date: September 2022; End date: April 2025
5: VEBIS – Vaccine Effectiveness Burden and Impact Studies of Covid-19 and Influenza
The project consists of surveillance of severe acute respiratory infections (SARI) as well as COVID-19 Vaccine Effectiveness and Influenza Vaccine Effectiveness studies run on SARI Surveillance data. VEBIS is a continuation of SARI Surveillance and COVID-19
Vaccine Effectiveness projects in which Malta participated from February 2021 till June 2022.
• Start date: June 2022; End date: November 2025
6: NEDSS - National Electronic Disease Surveillance System
Continued development of NEDSS as a case management portal. The second phase of the NEDSS project focuses on modernizing the current "Disease Surveillance Manager" by migrating its data and integrating all disease families' forms into a single system. It aims to enhance case management, contact tracing, interoperability and periodic report extraction.
• Second phase partially EU funded: Start date: January 2025; End date: July 2026
7: The IDCU as a recognised EPIET training site
The European Programme for Intervention Epidemiology Training (EPIET) is a two year training fellowship in applied field epidemiology led by European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). The aim of the program is to create a network of highly trained field epidemiologists in the European Union, strengthening the prevention, preparedness, surveillance and control of infectious diseases and other cross-border health threats or issues of public health concern in the EU/EEA Member States and at EU level. IDCU has been officially recognised as an EPIET training site in 2016 and since then 4 EU-track fellows have been hosted and successfully completed the training program in Malta. Currently, a Member State fellow is undergoing training in Malta, with graduation anticipated in 2026. https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/epiet-euphem/about
The IDCU has also recently completed participation in the following Joint Actions/Projects:
1: AcToVax4NAM - Increased Access to Vaccination for Newly Arrived Migrants
Malta is one of the 10 partners participating in the AcToVax4NAM EU project, working towards improving the vaccination uptake of newly arrived migrants. During the final phase of the project, Malta organised awareness sessions with Professionals for Health working with Migrant Health Screening, sessions with migrants attending the migrant health clinic, and parents of migrant students attendingthe orientation school in Naxxar. These sessions were viewed positively by both professionals for health and migrants, and the pre and post questionnaires showed a positive result re intention to vaccinate.
• Start date: 1st May 2021; End Date: 30th November 2024
2: TERROR – Strengthened preparedness and response to biological and chemical terror attacks
Joint Action TERROR’s main objectives were to address gaps in health preparedness and to strengthen cross-sectoral work with security, civil protection, and health sectors response to biological and chemical terror attacks. Malta participated as an active member in this joint action also with the participation of the Civil Protection Department.
• Start date: December 2019 – December 2024
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