Start of West Nile fever seasonal monitoring 2018
Today ECDC starts the seasonal monitoring for West Nile fever transmission in Europe. Since the beginning of the 2018 transmission season and as of 31 May 2018, no human or equine cases of West Nile fever have been reported by EU Member States and neighbouring countries.
Every Friday interactive data on the human and equine cases in EU, EEA and the neighbouring countries will be made available through the Surveillance Atlas. The weekly update will comprise:
- summary of the epidemiological situation
- a table with the number of human and equine cases by country and nomenclature of territorial units for statistics 3 (NUTS 3) administrative levels (click “table” at the bottom of surveillance atlas),
- maps with: i) human West Nile fever cases; ii) human cases compared to the previous season; iii) equine West Nile fever cases; and iv) human and equine West Nile fever cases all together.
ECDC carries out surveillance of West Nile fever cases in humans every year, during the West Nile fever transmission season - to provide timely information on the current West Nile fever transmission in Europe to the national blood authorities. According to the EU legislation, the EU Member States must defer or test prospective blood donors who have visited one or more areas with autochthonous human West Nile virus cases.
In 2017, for the first time, ECDC included equine West Nile fever cases in its epidemiological updates, as an early detection of the circulation of the virus in an area (the horses can be hosts of the West Nile virus). During the 2017 transmission season, 204 human cases and 127 equine cases were reported in the EU.