EU-wide monitoring of biological hazards along the food chain: achievements, challenges and EFSA vision for the future

For more than 10 years the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has been tasked with the European Union (EU)-wide data collection on zoonoses, zoonotic agents, antimicrobial resistance and food-borne outbreaks. Annually EFSA produces, jointly with the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, EU Summary Reports that integrate all information along the food chain. This short review summarises the achievements made with this integrated food-chain data collection and information system, identifies lessons learnt, and describes challenges for improving the quality and the use of the collected data on food, animals and feed. Only EU-harmonised monitoring schemes can provide valid and precise data enabling temporal or spatial trends analyses.