The COVID-19 pandemic revealed the critical need to improve public health preparedness and response to future cross-border health threats on both national and European level. This EU European Union (European Union ) action grant in the field of crisis preparedness under the EU4Health Programme will contribute to the improvement and strengthening of infectious disease surveillance systems in Member States at national level, in line with the EU4Health Programme and outcomes of the preparatory Joint Action UNITED4Surveillance, and thereby enhancing the (pandemic) preparedness for future health crisis threats.

Goals

Surveillance4NL has started in November 2024 and will run until November 2028. Within this 4-year project ,the Netherlands will focus on improving surveillance infrastructures in three core areas (WP2: hospital surveillance, WP3: citizen science, and WP4: sero-surveillance) and implementing several innovative initiatives in daily practice. The core work packages are crosslinked by the addition of novel detection methods (WP3 and WP4) and introducing artificial intelligence techniques (WP2 and WP3). This will contribute to improved integration, interoperability, automatisation, and digitalisation of our current infectious disease surveillance systems in the Netherlands. 

Our national consortium will address the following objectives: 
1.    supporting the development of automated surveillance in hospitals using federated communities and learning techniques; 
2.    strengthening current citizen science initiatives that contribute to integrating citizen science into routine practices for preparedness and response;  
3.    innovating sero-surveillance methods of (re)emerging pathogens in the human as well as in the wildlife population across species to assist in assessing the full scale of disease spread in the population and early warning of zoonotic threats.

RIVM role 

RIVM is the Coordinator of Surveillance4NL. The RIVM Centre for Infectious Disease control (RIVM-CIb) consists of five centers that will all participate in this project. These RIVM centers have specific expertise and complementary roles within infectious disease control and work together daily. RIVM-CIb coordinates the control of infectious diseases in the Netherlands. This includes effective prevention, close vigilance and quick response in the event of an outbreak, thus contributing to reducing health problems related to infectious diseases.

Project coordination by Eelco Franz (Coordinator), Sierk Marbus (Project lead) and Nika Ritsema (Projectmanager). To contact the project office, send an e-mail to Surveillance4NL@rivm.nl

Consortium

Radboud University Medical Centre  (Radboudumc) and RIVM collaborate in Surveillance4NL.  Radboudumc has distinct roles and tasks in WP2, hospital surveillance. 

Funding

This project has received funding from the EU4Health Programme, project ID 101180538.