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1. The Centre shall establish a EU Health Task Force and ensure that there is a permanent capacity and an enhanced emergency capacity to mobilise and use it. The EU Health Task Force shall provide assistance with regard to requests for prevention, preparedness and response planning, local responses to outbreaks of communicable diseases and after-action reviews in Member States and in third countries, in cooperation with the WHO. The EU Health Task Force shall include the Centre’s staff and experts from Member States, fellowship programmes and international and non-profit organisations. The Centre shall develop capacities to conduct field epidemiology and research, and gather relevant data, such as on the variants of communicable diseases, using the dedicated network of EU reference laboratories or its own resources.

2. The Centre, in cooperation with the Commission, shall develop a framework to define the organisational structure and the use of the permanent capacity of the EU Health Task Force.

At the joint request of the Commission and Member States, the enhanced emergency capacity of the EU Health Task Force shall be mobilised. The Commission shall, by means of implementing acts, adopt the procedures concerning the mobilisation of the enhanced emergency capacity of the EU Health Task Force. Those implementing acts shall be adopted in accordance with the examination procedure referred to in Article 30a(2).

3. The Centre shall ensure that the EU Health Task Force is coordinated with, complementary to and integrates the capacities of the European Medical Corps, other relevant capacities under the Union Civil Protection Mechanism and mechanisms of international organisations.

4. Through the EU Health Task Force, the Centre shall provide Union field response experts in international response teams mobilised by the WHO Health Emergencies Programme mechanism and the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN), in accordance with appropriate working arrangements established with the Commission.

5. The Centre shall facilitate the development of field response capabilities and crisis management expertise among the Centre’s staff and experts from Member States and EEA countries, from candidate countries and potential candidates, as well as from European Neighbourhood Policy countries and partner countries, at the request of the Commission and in collaboration with the Member States.

6. By establishing a mechanism for mobilising and using the EU Health Task Force, the Centre shall maintain the permanent capacity of the EU Health Task Force and enhance the country-specific knowledge necessary to carry out missions to Member States, at the joint request of the Commission and Member States concerned, to provide science-based recommendations on preparedness for and response to threats to health and to carry out after-action reviews, within its mandate.

7. At the request of the Commission and Member States, the Centre shall engage in long-term capacity-building projects aimed at strengthening preparedness capacities under the IHR in non-European third countries, in particular partner countries.