Infectious Diseases

The request was partially successful.

Lyndsay Eccleston

Dear European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control,

Under the right of access to documents in the EU treaties, as developed in Regulation 1049/2001, I am requesting documents which contain the following information:

(i) Year on year statistics for all infectious & communicable diseases reported in Northern Ireland over the past 10 years.

(ii) The policies & procedures that Northern Ireland must follow in order to appropriately report and manage infectious & communicable diseases.

(iii) The best way for lay people to report infectious disease concerns.

I would like to this opportunity to thank you in advance.

Yours faithfully,

Lyndsay Eccleston

Access to documents, European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control

6 Attachments

Dear Ms. Eccleston ,

 

Thank you for your e-mail dated 05/04/2019.  We hereby acknowledge receipt
of your application for access to documents, which was registered on
08/04/2019 under reference number 19-874.

 

In accordance with Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 regarding public access to
European Parliament, Council and Commission documents, which also applies
to ECDC, your application will be handled within 15 working days. The time
limit will expire on 03/05/2019. In case this time limit needs to be
extended, you will be informed in due course.

 

Yours faithfully,

ECDC Access to documents team

 

 

    
[1]ECDC European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control
Logo (ECDC)
Gustav III:s boulevard 40, 169 73 Solna, Sweden
Phone +46 (0)8 58 60 10 00 / Fax +46 (0)8 58 60 10 01
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Lyndsay Eccleston

Dear Access to documents,

Thank you for considering our request. Unfortunately, the response has now been flagged as delayed.

If possible, can you please provide an update?

Thank you.

Yours sincerely,

Lyndsay Eccleston

Access to documents, European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control

22 Attachments

Dear Ms. Eccleston,

 

With our sincere apologies for the slight delay, please find attached the
reply to your request for access to documents as well as the requested
data. Due to the large size of the files, we will send them to you in
several messages

 

Kind regards,

ECDC access to documents team

 

From: Access to documents <[email address]>
Sent: 09 April 2019 16:13
To: [FOI #6771 email]
Cc: ECDC Info <[email address]>; Access to documents
<[email address]>
Subject: 19-874: access to documents request - Infectious Diseases

 

Dear Ms. Eccleston ,

 

Thank you for your e-mail dated 05/04/2019.  We hereby acknowledge receipt
of your application for access to documents, which was registered on
08/04/2019 under reference number 19-874.

 

In accordance with Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 regarding public access to
European Parliament, Council and Commission documents, which also applies
to ECDC, your application will be handled within 15 working days. The time
limit will expire on 03/05/2019. In case this time limit needs to be
extended, you will be informed in due course.

 

Yours faithfully,

ECDC Access to documents team

 

 

 

    
[1]ECDC European Centre for Disease Prevention and
Logo Control (ECDC)
Gustav III:s boulevard 40, 169 73 Solna, Sweden
Phone +46 (0)8 58 60 10 00 / Fax +46 (0)8 58 60
10 01
[2]www.ecdc.europa.eu
   
   
Follow [3]Facebook [4]Twitter [5]LinkedIn [6]Google [7]YouTube
ECDC Plus
on:
 

 

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Access to documents (TESSy Data Access), European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control

##- Please type your reply above this line -##

You are registered as a CC on this request (4606). Reply to this email to
add a comment to the request.
All recipients in this ticket will be updated. To:Access to documents,
Cc:ECDC Info, [FOI #6771 email]

Access to documents

May 8, 14:38 CEST

This is a follow-up to your previous request [1]#4476 "19-874: access to
documents..."

Dear Ms. Eccleston,

With our sincere apologies for the slight delay, please find attached the
reply to your request for access to documents as well as the requested
data. Due to the large size of the files, we will send them to you in
several messages

Kind regards,

ECDC access to documents team

From: Access to documents <[2][email address]>
Sent: 09 April 2019 16:13
To: [3][FOI #6771 email]
Cc: ECDC Info <[4][email address]>; Access to documents
<[5][email address]>
Subject: 19-874: access to documents request - Infectious Diseases

Dear Ms. Eccleston ,

Thank you for your e-mail dated 05/04/2019. We hereby acknowledge receipt
of your application for access to documents, which was registered on
08/04/2019 under reference number 19-874.

In accordance with Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 regarding public access to
European Parliament, Council and Commission documents, which also applies
to ECDC, your application will be handled within 15 working days. The time
limit will expire on 03/05/2019. In case this time limit needs to be
extended, you will be informed in due course.

Yours faithfully,

ECDC Access to documents team

European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC)
Gustav III:s boulevard 40, 169 73 Solna, Sweden

Phone +46 (0)8 58 60 10 00 / Fax +46 (0)8 58 60 10 01

[6]www.ecdc.europa.eu

Follow ECDC on:

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Access to documents, European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control

14 Attachments

Dear Ms. Eccleston,

 

This is the second part of the data related to your below request for
access to documents.

 

Kind regards,

ECDC access to documents team

 

 

From: Access to documents <[email address]>
Sent: 08 May 2019 14:38
To: [FOI #6771 email]
Cc: ECDC Info <[email address]>; Data Access
<[email address]>
Subject: 19-874: access to documents request - Infectious Diseases

 

Dear Ms. Eccleston,

 

With our sincere apologies for the slight delay, please find attached the
reply to your request for access to documents as well as the requested
data. Due to the large size of the files, we will send them to you in
several messages

 

Kind regards,

ECDC access to documents team

 

From: Access to documents <[1][email address]>
Sent: 09 April 2019 16:13
To: [2][FOI #6771 email]
Cc: ECDC Info <[3][email address]>; Access to documents
<[4][email address]>
Subject: 19-874: access to documents request - Infectious Diseases

 

Dear Ms. Eccleston ,

 

Thank you for your e-mail dated 05/04/2019.  We hereby acknowledge receipt
of your application for access to documents, which was registered on
08/04/2019 under reference number 19-874.

 

In accordance with Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 regarding public access to
European Parliament, Council and Commission documents, which also applies
to ECDC, your application will be handled within 15 working days. The time
limit will expire on 03/05/2019. In case this time limit needs to be
extended, you will be informed in due course.

 

Yours faithfully,

ECDC Access to documents team

 

 

 

    
[5]ECDC European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control
Logo (ECDC)
Gustav III:s boulevard 40, 169 73 Solna, Sweden
Phone +46 (0)8 58 60 10 00 / Fax +46 (0)8 58 60 10
01
[6]www.ecdc.europa.eu
   
   
Follow [7]Facebook [8]Twitter [9]LinkedIn [10]Google [11]YouTube
ECDC Plus
on:
 

 

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Lyndsay Eccleston

Dear Access to documents,

Thank you kindly for your response. Further to the
‘All UK data.csv.txt’ CSV file, can you please provide the full date & the location of the infection by hospital?

Yours sincerely,

Lyndsay Eccleston

Access to documents, European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control

7 Attachments

Dear Ms. Eccleston,

With regard to your below email as well as the email dated 15 May 2019,
both submitted through the third party website Ask.TheEU.org, and to your
email of 10 May 2019 which you submitted to the ECDC confirmatory requests
mailbox, please find the answer attached.

Yours sincerely,

The ECDC Access to Documents team

    
[1]ECDC European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control
Logo (ECDC)
Gustav III:s boulevard 40, 169 73 Solna, Sweden
Phone +46 (0)8 58 60 10 00 / Fax +46 (0)8 58 60 10 01
[2]www.ecdc.europa.eu
   
    Follow [3]Facebook [4]Twitter [5]LinkedIn [6]Google Plus [7]YouTube
ECDC on:
 

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Lyndsay Eccleston

Dear European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control,

Please pass this on to the person who reviews confirmatory applications.

I am filing the following confirmatory application with regards to my access to documents request 'Infectious Diseases’ application for access to documents — MR-2019-IN-874 which has been declined.

I had requested a document containing recorded infectious diseases data in Northern Ireland for the period May 2009 -
May 2019. To include;
(1) the full date of each reported case
(2) location by hospital
(3) Gender
(4) Age
(5) Name & type of infection
(6) Reported deaths

You have advised “While some of the information requested could be retrieved from The European Surveillance System database operated by ECDC, it is not possible for ECDC to create a document with the information you require by extracting the information through a routine search using all the query fields you identified (see Judgment of the Court of 11 January 2017 in case C-491/15 P, Typke v Commission”.
Therefore, we regret to inform you that no documents were found that would correspond to the description given in your application. Indeed, as specified in Article 2(3) of Regulation 1049/2001, the right of access as defined in that Regulation applies only to existing documents in the possession of the institution. Given that no such document have been identified, ECDC is not in a position to handle your request”.

Firstly, we would like to challenge that statement. The information provided to you by our government contains all of the requested information which is then transferred onto the database. To suggest the information does not exist as it does not appear on the main screen is misleading. A new query can easily be applied to extract the requested metadata. This is something you do regularly to produce reports such as the ‘annual epidemiological reports’ or ‘surveillance maps’ etc. The problem we have, is these reports are grouped by UK only and not Northern Ireland. Your first response did in fact break down the disease by Northern Ireland, so obviously that is a query that can be applied.

Currently, you do provide dates and numbers affected by reported diseases, gender & age, so may we respectfully suggest that at the very least, you provide this information for Northern Ireland?

You have also stated, “We would also remark that, if such a document would exist, it would contain personal data. In fact, by combining the variables that you envisaged, it would be potentially possible to identify the data subjects.”

We have not requested personally identifiable information such as names. However. If the hospital details are considered to be too personally identifiable, then we would concede that location by hospital can be replaced by reported cases.

Further to your comments “When access is requested to documents containing personal data, Regulation (LU) No 2018/1725 becomes fully applicable.” According to Article 9.1(b) of this Regulation, personal data shall only be transferred to recipients if they establish the necessity of having the data transferred to them and if there is no reason to assume that the legitimate rights of the persons concerned might be prejudiced. With the information available, ECDC considers that you have not been able to establish the necessity of personal data included in the TESSy database, and that the disclosure would not prejudice the legitimate rights of the persons concerned”, please allow me to explain who we are, and why this data has been requested;

NITSIP (Northern Ireland Trust Services Improvement Panel) are a statutory advocacy group that address the requisite concerns of patients, carers and staff. It has been suggested that by 2050, there will be 10 million deaths per year due to antimicrobial resistance and it is our job to help influence governance that protects the general public. This information is vital to in helping us protect the public.

Kind regards

Lyndsay

Confirmatory Requests, European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control

6 Attachments

Dear Ms Eccleston,

We acknowledge receipt of your email of 28 May 2019, which we registered
on 29 May 2019. ECDC will reply to your confirmatory application  in due
time.

Best regards,

ECDC Legal Services

    
[1]ECDC European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control
Logo (ECDC)
Gustav III:s boulevard 40, 169 73 Solna, Sweden
Phone +46 (0)8 58 60 10 00 / Fax +46 (0)8 58 60 10 01
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Confirmatory Requests, European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control

9 Attachments

Dear Ms Eccleston,

Please find attached a letter by the Director of ECDC in reply to your
confirmatory applications.

Best regards,

ECDC Legal Services

    
[1]ECDC European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control
Logo (ECDC)
Gustav III:s boulevard 40, 169 73 Solna, Sweden
Phone +46 (0)8 58 60 10 00 / Fax +46 (0)8 58 60 10 01
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Lyndsay Eccleston

Dear European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control,

Thank you for providing some of the data we had requested.

We note that from your letter that you have not provided details of infectious diseases when there are less than 5 reported cases for the year as you feel it would be too indentifyable. We can ask individuals to put forward a subject access you directly in those cases.

The concerns I have is the data that has been provided appears to be incomplete.

1) There are many missing infectious diseases. Other than the less than 5 reported cases, can you advise where these are?
2) We appear to only have data from January to May in the Date field . The rest is labelled W01 - W20. We can only assume that W01 is week one. However, we do not know what date week one begins and if the remaining codes W02, W03 etc are consecutive. Please can replace this with actual dates?
3) If the assumption that “W01” is a weekly code, there are around 10 weeks out of the year that are missing. Can you please provide all dates.
4) Your comments that I should be able to find the correct Nuts code for Northern Ireland are a little confusing. Firstly, what are the NUTS code for Northern Ireland as many numbers follow that code? Does this mean the spreadsheet I have been sent contains data from across the UK and not Northern Ireland as requested?

This is very basic information we have requested & something certain departments within the CDC would be reviewing regularly. We have raised concerns to you directly about the recording & reporting infectious & communicable diseases, and from our point of view we feel as though this information is intentionally withheld. A very simple request appears to be made a more difficult than it needs to be.

Please pass this on to the person who reviews confirmatory applications.

I am filing the following confirmatory application with regards to my access to documents request 'Infectious Diseases”.

A full history of my request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/infe...

Please provide an acknowledgment of this request.

Yours faithfully,

Lyndsay Eccleston

Confirmatory Requests, European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control

9 Attachments

Dear Ms Eccleston,

Please find attached a letter of the Director of ECDC on the above
referenced matter.

Best regards,

ECDC Legal Services

    
[1]ECDC European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control
Logo (ECDC)
Gustav III:s boulevard 40, 169 73 Solna, Sweden
Phone +46 (0)8 58 60 10 00 / Fax +46 (0)8 58 60 10 01
[2]www.ecdc.europa.eu
   
    Follow [3]Facebook [4]Twitter [5]LinkedIn [6]Google Plus [7]YouTube
ECDC on:
 

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If you are not the intended recipient of this message, you are hereby
kindly requested, to, consecutively, refrain from disclosing its content
to any third party, delete it, and inform its sender of the erroneous
transmittal.

References

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