My name is Elena. I am an epidemiologist
from Thessaloniki in northern Greece and I have
been working in the European Commission in
Luxembourg since 1997.
I love life and I value my health. I am
proud to live in a European Union where most
citizens can expect to live into their 70s and
80s. At the beginning of the last century,
though, it was still common for Europeans to
die young from infectious diseases such as
typhoid, cholera, diphtheria and tuberculosis.
Now, thankfully, these diseases are very rare
in EU countries.
My job is to make sure it stays that way.
I work in a team of officials who coordinate
the EU's defences against
infectious
diseases. Outbreaks such as
SARS
in 2003 and
bird
flu in 2004 and, following the 2001 anthrax
attacks, the chilling prospect of
bioterrorism
remind us that infectious diseases is a threat
we cannot ignore. They also remind us that
epidemics do not respect borders.
