Andrea Ammon

Andrea Ammon (born 11 December 1958) is a German physician and the former director of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), a European Union (EU) agency strengthening Europe's defence against infectious disease. She advised the German government on the SARS and Influenza A virus subtype H2N2 outbreaks.

Early life and education In 1996, Ammon completed her doctorate in medicine at LMU Munich, where she studied the quality of life for patients that have palliative therapy for metastatic liver disease.

Career Ammon joined the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin in 1996. Between 2002 and 2005, she was Head of Department for Infectious Disease Epidemiology. At the Robert Koch Institute, Ammon was responsible for the German national outbreak surveillance system, coordinating their response to severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Influenza A virus subtype H2N2. As part of this effort, Ammon investigated in-flight transmission of SARS and found that it was uncommon; and only likely if infected people fly during symptomatic phases of their illness.

In 2005, Ammon joined the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), where she was appointed Head of Surveillance. She was one of the first employees at the ECDC, and has since been described as "instrumental" in establishing the surveillance strategy. TESSy launched in April 2008. In 2011, she was made deputy director of the Resource Management and Coordination unit. A few years later, she led the European Scientific Conference on Applied Infectious Disease Epidemiology. As part of the conference, in the wake of the Western African Ebola virus epidemic, Ammon oversaw sessions on food-borne diseases, zoonotic viruses and globalisation. She was subsequently appointed Director on 22 March 2017 and took office on 16 June 2017. In 2017 the ECDC and WHO announced that whilst cases of tuberculosis were on the decline in Europe, tuberculosis in relation to HIV was on the rise.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Ammon was involved with the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic. On January 26, Ammon and the ECDC advised governments in the European Union to strengthen their healthcare capacity. Unfortunately, the ECDC had over-estimated the stocks of personal protective equipment and lab testing capacity in individual member states, resulting in considerable spread of coronavirus disease across Europe. She has since said that the extensive spread of coronavirus in Europe can be linked to the return of holidaymakers from skiing trips in early March. In an interview with The Guardian on May 20, 2020, Ammon emphasised that there was likely to be a second wave of SARS-CoV-2 infections, "...the question is when and how big."

Selected publications