Context
In April 2006 Member States (MS) met to discuss the role of ECDC in outbreak investigation and response in various contexts including Multi-MS outbreaks. One of the conclusions was the need to develop guiding principles on the role of ECDC in outbreak response considering the particularities of different transmission modes and pathogens. These guiding principles would be in two stages:
1) Generic framework for outbreak response;
2) disease – specific principles addressing the particularities for response to that disease or transmission mode.
Exercise Blue Triangle was a European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) exercise designed to test the ECDC Guiding principles for the response to a food and waterborne disease (FWD) threat at EU level. The exercise was conducted at the ECDC premises in Stockholm as an internal Table Top simulation exercise (TTX) in November 2008.
An ‘Exercise Design Team’ (EDT) from the Emergency Response Department of the HPA, UK – was established to design and conduct the exercise. An Exercise Planning Group (EPG) coordinated by staff from the Preparedness and Response Unit (PRU) with support from staff of the Food and Waterborne horizontal programme, Health Communication Unit (HCU) and Administrative staff of ECDC was formed to provide the Exercise Design Team with guidance for the planning and approval of the exercise documentation and conduct.
Several meetings between EDT and EPG took place during the preparation of the Exercise. A pre-exercise briefing for ECDC staff took place two weeks before the launch of the exercise, where general information on the exercise, purpose, objectives and organisation was shared.