PROJECT: INTERNATIONAL CIRCUMPOLAR SURVEILLANCE: PREVENTION AND CONTROL OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES. Region: Circumpolar Project. Period: 1999-2006. Lead Country/Permanent Participant: United States. Leader: Dr. Alan Parkinson, Arctic Investigations Program, National Center for Infectious Diseases Center for Disease Control & Prevention, 4055 Tudor Centre Drive, Anchorage, Alaska 99508 USA, +907-729-3407, fax +907-729-3429, email: ajp1@cdc.gov.Arctic Council Participation: United States, Canada, Denmark/Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russian Federation. Implementing Agency: US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia. The goal of this project is to establish an integrated International Circumpolar Surveillance (ICS) network linking hospitals and public health laboratories throughout the Arctic for the purpose of monitoring emerging and reemerging infectious disease problems within Arctic communities, and assist in the formulation of preventive strategies. The plan is to establish population based surveillance of diseases of most concern to residents of Arctic countries, to determine the rates of disease, populations at greatest risk, and the most effective preventive strategies. ICS was established for invasive pneumococcal disease in the U.S. Arctic (Alaska) and northern Canada (1999), Greenland, Iceland, Norway, and Finland (2000), and Sweden (2003). Surveillance for other invasive bacterial diseases (i.e., those caused by Haemophilus influenzae, Neisseria meningitidis, groups A & B streptococcus) was initiated for the North American Arctic in 2000 and will be implemented in other Arctic countries in subsequent years. The surveillance of other diseases such as tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and hepatitis as well as infectious diseases that may emerge as a consequence of climate change can be added to ICS as the need and support arise.