Health protection and a new strategy for combating infection in children.

1 The prevention, diagnosis, and management of infection forms a large part of this but the new Health Protection Agency (HPA), which will become active in April 2003, will also deal with emergency planning and environmental threats to human health as there are many overlaps in the approaches to dealing with infections, and chemical and radiological threats. 1 This initiative has important implications for the way in which paediatricians will work to protect children from all such threats. In combination with the National Service Framework (NSF) for Children, 2 it offers the opportunity for developing networks of care which will potentially provide a high quality infection diagnosis and treatment service for all children. Infections are causing increasing problems in public health and clinical care. The rising toll of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, 3 mounting numbers of cases of tuberculosis (particularly in London), 4 health care associated infections and antibiotic resistant pathogens in hospitals and the community, 5 and the continuing worries over immu-nisation uptake 6 are but a few. 1 Children are particularly vulnerable to exposure to environmental toxic agents in utero and in early life. Chemical spills and natural disasters have revealed gaps in civil protection in many countries and there are increasing concerns over terrorism, including the covert deliberate release of biological and chemical agents. 1 8–11 The strategy addresses these issues for England. A new Agency will be developed by combining three current non-departmental public bodies (the Public Health Laboratory Service, the Centre for Applied Microbiological Research, and the National Radiological Protection Board) with personnel currently delivering local protection services. These include consultants in communicable disease control , chemical incident response services, toxicology services, and health emergency planners. Equally however, most aspects of local health protection will continue to rely on the National Health Service, for example in delivering immu-nisation services and infection control in trusts. Local health protection agreements and partnerships will contribute to delivering health protection in Eng-land. 1 The partnerships will have to be comprised of acute trusts (including paediatrics and microbiology), local health protection units of the HPA, local authorities, and networked groups of primary care trusts (PCTs). The Strategy puts the protection of the public's health in the centre of government strategy. The UK's devolved administrations (Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales) are now deciding how they will relate to the Agency, and the children's NSF. Wales, for example, will have …