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Abstract

Throughout the passing centuries, States have been periodically forced to adapt their sanitary services in order to be able to deal with recurrent waves of epidemics. The progress achieved in the fields of hygiene, vaccination and antibiotics between 1850 and 1950 prompted the belief that these infections had been permanently vanquished. However, the irruption of emerging or re-emerging diseases, resistance to antibiotics, Aids and SRAS, as well as the bio-terrorist threat, have led us back towards a more modest appraisal of our capacity to control the intrinsic ability of the living world to evolve. In order to deal with this situation, the European Union will equip itself with the coordinated capacities of alert and control which it previously lacked. The final organization of this new agency, its size and mandate are an object of debate, the outcome of which will determine to an important extent the sanitary security of our continent in the years to come.

Antoine Andremont is a professor of medecine at the University Paris VII and the Head of the Laboratory of Bacteriology of the hospital-group Bichat-Claude Bernard.