Institute of Public Health of Albania is working to establish a tool for Epidemic Intelligence in Albania through regular weekly Epidemic Telephone -Conferences (EpiTel). This process  is supported by Robert Koch Institute (RKI) Germany. After discussions among IPH epidemiologists and prefectures and main districts epidemiologists about the scope and the organization of such platform, it has been considered to start EpiTel with 12 prefecture and revise it after two years.

On 14-15 February a two days training with DDD was organized, at Tirana International Hotel, with scanning hardware and scanning documents.  This training was done in the framework of the project ‘Improving early detection and response of country and cross border diseases, events and risks by digitalization of priority surveillance sources’, in partnership and supported by Skoll Global Threats Fund- SGTF USA.

On February 24^th, 2017 in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina SECID organised the Annual Influenza Meeting on “Improving Influenza Surveillance and Pandemic Response in SEE Countries”. This event took place in the framework of the five year project Surveillance and Response to Avian and Pandemic Influenza supported by CDC, Atlanta, USA.

The aim of the meeting was to present the achievements and challenges of influenza surveillance and pandemic preparedness in SEE countries.

The objectives were:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe (WHO EURO) in collaboration with South East European Centre for Surveillance and Control of Infectious Diseases (SECID), have organized a Workshop on Monitoring and Evaluation of Surveillance Systems with Emphasis on Influenza Sentinel Surveillance, in Countries of South East Europe from 20-23 February 2017, in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.