You have raised a number of issues. The important thing is that the ECDC gets the data from individual member countries. We already have a very effective surveillance system in Scotland and we feed the information through Public Health England to the ECDC, which collates the information for all the EU countries. As you correctly say, there is an alert system whereby it alerts us.
There are two points in relation to that. First, over and above the ECDC, information on things such as flu pandemics and swine flu is co-ordinated by the World Health Organization, and the international health regulations, which will remain in place, automatically alert all the WHO member countries of any emerging new virus that might cause a pandemic.
Secondly, we also work closely with the ECDC, which does risk assessments. Public Health England is the national focal point for the whole of the UK, so we work with the ECDC through it. Public Health England has just set up a group to look at the implications of Brexit regarding surveillance and our ability to respond to any major outbreaks.
When we look at each individual element, as long as collaboration and co-operation continues with European countries through the ECDC—and there is acknowledgement that disease does not recognise boundaries and borders—there should not be any major issues. We are looking at the mitigating factors that we need to put in place to be able to respond.
On the whole, in the UK and in Scotland particularly, we have a very good and robust system of identifying, managing and responding to outbreaks. Quite often, I am pleased to say, a lot of the EU countries look to the UK public health system for support and learn lessons from us.