Where a Member State or the Commission becomes aware of the emergence or development of a serious cross-border threat to health within the meaning of Article 9(1) of Decision No 1082/2013/EU, it shall introduce the alert referred to in that Article without delay and in any event no later than 24 hours from when it first became aware of the threat.

The Member State or the Commission may inform the Health Security Committee (‘HSC’) of the introduction of an alert.

The notification obligation referred to in paragraph 1, shall not affect the notification obligation laid down in Article 9(2) of Decision No 1082/2013/EU.

The fact that not all relevant information, as indicated in Article 9(3) of that Decision, may be available shall not delay the notification of an alert.

The alert referred to in paragraph 1 shall specify how the criteria laid down in Article 9(1) of Decision No 1082/2013/EU are fulfilled.

Where, following an alert notification, a Member State or the Commission wishes to communicate available relevant information for coordination purposes pursuant to Article 9(3) of Decision No 1082/2013/EU, it shall use the ad hoc functionality of the EWRS to post a ‘comment’ in reply to the initial notification message.