First meeting of the European Surveillance of STIs (ESSTI) network collaborative group

The ESSTI (European Surveillance of Sexually Transmitted Infections) network, funded since December 2001 by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Health and Consumer Protection (DG SANCO, http://europa.eu.int/comm/dgs/health_consumer/index_en.htm), held its first collaborative group meeting at the Health Protection Agency Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre (CDSC) in the United Kingdom, on 18-19 March 2003. The meeting was preceded by a one day European conference on syphilis outbreaks (advances in surveillance, diagnosis and management), also at CDSC, at which several European collaborators gave presentations on recent national syphilis outbreaks.