ECDC director named

Zsuzsanna Jakab, the top civil servant in Hungary's health ministry, was named last week the first director of the new European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).Jakab, born in 1951, has spent much of her career working in state administration in Hungary, according to the Hungarian Ministry of Health's Web site. From 1991, she worked at the European regional office of the World Health Organization and since 2003 has been Titular Administrative Secretary of State in the ministry.According to Markos Kyprianou, European Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection, Jakab has "an impressive track record in international public health, both in terms of her management skills and her political vision." "I am sure she will provide the ECDC with the leadership it needs to start up its activities and establish its reputation," Kyprianou said in a statement.The development of the ECDC has come under stiff criticism from senior infectious disease experts in the past year. Criticisms include the fact that it will not have any dedicated laboratory facilities and that its budget is too small. The main focus of the ECDC will be to facilitate coordination of work conducted in EU member countries. That focus is reflected in the choice of director, according to leading researchers contacted by The Scientist. "Obviously, in this case, the commission has chosen to appoint a person who is an administrator [rather than a scientist]," said S. Ragnar Norrby, director general of the Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control. "That could work well, provided she chooses people who are scientists as her deputies."Albert Osterhaus, head of the Institute of Virology at Erasmus University Medical Center, Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, agreed. "She should be backed up by people with good lab backgrounds and who know the key labs in Europe, so that it is more than just a political exercise, a paper tiger."But without dedicated lab facilities, that could be a difficult task, Osterhaus noted. "For an active scientist, it isn't attractive to go to Stockholm and work behind a desk."John Oxford, professor of virology at St. Bartholomew's and the Royal London Hospital, had sterner words. "What one does not want is a pale shadow of the American CDC with its huge staff and dedicate lab facilities," he told The Scientist. "Without labs, it is a complete 'emperor in new clothes.'" "The politicians of our times need to take infectious diseases very seriously," Oxford said, "otherwise their legacy will be a disaster zone."The ECDC is seen by the European Commission as having a key role to play in delivering the European Union's public health agenda in the face of infectious diseases like severe acute respiratory syndrome, bird flu, and HIV/AIDS.Jakab will appear in front of a European Parliament committee early next year before her appointment is confirmed. "Once the appointment is confirmed, the director can begin recruiting staff for the center and establishing its Europe-wide network of disease control experts," the European Commission said last week. She would be the first national from one of the member states that joined the European Union on May 1, 2004, to become the head of an EU agency.Jakab, who could not be reached for comment, said in a statement: "I am delighted and honored to have been nominated as director. Faced with threats such as the resurgence of HIV/AIDS on our continent and the possibility of an influenza pandemic, the pressure is already on for the ECDC to start delivering results. I will do my utmost to start up the center rapidly and efficiently."

ECDC director named

Top public servant in the Hungarian health ministry named to head up Europe's new CDC

Interested in reading more?

Become a Member of