STOCKHOLM—The current plans for establishing a European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) leave the agency at risk of becoming a "lame duck" with insufficient authority and no laboratory facilities, infectious disease laboratory chiefs said here today (August 26) at the EuroScience Open Forum (ESOF) 2004.
The ECDC will be based in Sweden, the EU Parliament agreed in December, and will have a staff of 70. The parliament approved a €4 million budget for the agency in 2005, €14 million in 2006, and €29 million in 2007, according to S. Ragnar Norrby, director general of the Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control.
The new agency is currently in the process of recruiting a director. The closing date for applications is September 10, but it is not public knowledge how many people have applied for the post, said Norrby, who is ineligible because the job will have to be filled ...
