About the Emerging Infections Network

In 1995, the CDC granted a Cooperative Agreement Program award to the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) to develop a provider-based emerging infections sentinel network: the Emerging Infections Network (IDSA EIN).

The IDSA EIN has evolved into a flexible sentinel network composed of over 3,000 members of the infectious diseases community, primarily from North America, with some global members. Members include infectious diseases physicians, other ID healthcare professionals with advanced degrees (e.g. PharmD or nurse practitioner / physician assistant), and public health members who work in a federal (e.g. CDC, FDA), state or local public health department.

The overarching goal of the EIN is to assist the CDC and other public health authorities with surveillance for emerging infectious diseases and related phenomena. The specific goals of the EIN are to:

1. detect new or unusual clinical events;
2. identify cases during outbreak investigations;
3. gather information about clinical aspects of emerging infectious diseases;
4. help connect members to the CDC and other public health investigators; and
5. develop new methods for gathering epidemiological and clinical information.