The EUAA provides access to medical country of origin information (MedCOI). This information supports the national migration and asylum authorities in Europe to reach accurate and fair decisions in international protection and other migration procedures. More precisely, MedCOI is a service for national migration and asylum authorities, providing responses to requests for information about the availability and accessibility of medical interventions in countries of origin. The objectives and overview of MedCOI activities are described at the relevant EUAA Single Programming Document and Work Programme.
EUAA MedCOI relies on a worldwide network of medical experts that provides up-to-date medical information in countries of origin. Based on this information and combined with desk research, the EUAA MedCOI Sector produces responses to individual requests from EU+ countries, general medical country reports, and maintains a portal with a specific database where the information can be found. The portal also allows for the continuous exchange of information between EU+ countries, and between EU+ countries and the EUAA. The database is only accessible to trained personnel in EUAA and the EU+ countries' relevant administrations. Completion of the MedCOI training modules (specific training on the use of the MedCOI database and on MedCOI methodologies) is a necessary requirement to be granted access.
While individual responses are only available in the MedCOI Portal, EUAA MedCOI general medical country reports can also be found in the EUAA publication section and in the public page of the MedCOI Portal (under MedCOI publications).
The EUAA MedCOI Sector is part of the Country Information and Guidance Unit of the C3 Asylum Knowledge Centre (EUAA organigram). The sector is composed of medical advisors, researchers, officers, main coordinators, managers and administrative staff.
The MedCOI Data Protection Notice outlines the processing and handling of personal data of registered MedCOI users.
The research of information is conducted in accordance with the established MedCOI methodology as outlined in the EUAA MedCOI Report Methodology.
Individual health experts in the country of origin or contracted agencies are engaged by EUAA to provide information on request. These experts are selected from a pool of remunerated experts (Call for expressions of interest for local MedCOI experts) through an evaluation procedure, and the quality of the information they provide is continuously assessed. General COI sources are also used, such as information from health facilities, international and non-governmental organisations, governmental sources, academic texts, and media sources. The information is obtained through online research or/and through direct contact with the source.
The high quality and medical accuracy of the information is guaranteed by specifically trained EUAA medical advisors and research experts, who also provide guidance to the users of the Portal. EUAA MedCOI is continuously subject to internal and external quality assurance activities such as validations, audits, and peer reviews.
EUAA has established a two-tier advisory system to receive inputs from the EU+ countries on their information needs and on the overall service. The system is composed of a group of country representatives (MedCOI Strategic Network - StratNet) including all interested EU+ countries, providing advice at more long-term, strategic level, and a smaller group (MedCOI Advisory Committee) advising on issues of more operational nature.
Some representatives of the EU+ countries have provided their opinion on the MedCOI service as the main source for reliable and high-quality Medical Country of Origin Information.
The videos are published on X/Twitter at:
- Discover the EUAA's MedCOI service
- The EUAA's Medical Country of Origin Information (MedCOI) is an exceptional & incomparable resource
The annual MedCOI event, brings together, MedCOI users from EU+ countries and different expert speakers, providing insights on the latest findings and recommendations to improve the use of the service. Users attending these sessions are highly satisfied describing MedCOI services as “accurate, updated, reliable and traceable” and have shared their views on the annual MedCOI event.
The video is available on LinkedIn at:
