Regulation 10 Alert notification

(1)

Each UK public health agency must, in accordance with the Communications Protocol, alert the UK focal point of any serious cross-border health threat.

(2)

The alert notified under paragraph (1) must—

(a)

specify whether the threat—

(i)

is unusual or unexpected for the given place and time;

(ii)

causes or may cause significant morbidity or mortality in humans;

(iii)

is growing rapidly or may grow rapidly in scale; or

(iv)

exceeds or may exceed national response capacity; and

(b)

be notified without delay and in any event no later than 24 hours from the time when the UK public health agency concerned first became aware of that threat.

(3)

When notifying an alert under paragraph (1), the UK public health agency concerned must provide the UK focal point with any available relevant information in their possession that may be useful for coordinating the response including—

(a)

the type and origin of the agent;

(b)

the date and place of the incident or outbreak;

(c)

the means of transmission or dissemination;

(d)

toxicological data;

(e)

detection and confirmation methods;

(f)

public health risks;

(g)

public health measures implemented or intended to be adopted by the UK authority in the part of the United Kingdom concerned;

(h)

any measures other than public health measures adopted or intended to be adopted in the part of the United Kingdom concerned; and

(i)

any personal data necessary for the purpose of contact tracing.

(4)

Following the notification of an alert under paragraph (1) or a notification from the UK focal point under regulation 13(2), each UK public health agency must, in accordance with the Communications Protocol and for the duration of the threat, share with the UK focal point all relevant and available information relating to that threat which it has obtained from its monitoring activities.

(5)

Where an alert is notified under paragraph (1), the UK public health agency notifying the alert may produce jointly with the UK focal point a risk assessment of the potential severity of the health threat, including possible public health measures.

(6)

Any risk assessment produced under paragraph (5) must, for the purpose of coordinating a response from across the United Kingdom, be made promptly available to the other UK public health agencies.

(7)

Where a UK public health agency is also the UK focal point, the power in paragraph (5) may be exercised by the risk assessment being produced jointly by the persons responsible for the exercise of its functions as a UK public health agency and the persons responsible for the exercise of its functions as the UK focal point.

(8)

In paragraph (3)(i), “contact tracing” means measures implemented in order to trace persons who have been exposed to a source of a serious cross-border health threat and who are in danger of developing, or have developed, a disease arising from that threat.