West Nile virus infection - Annual Epidemiological Report for 2018

Surveillance report

16 Dec 2019

Publication series: Annual Epidemiological Report

Time period covered: 1 January 2018 - 31 December 2018

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This report is based on data for 2018 retrieved from The European Surveillance System (TESSy) on 10 September 2019.

Executive Summary

For 2018, eleven EU/EEA Member States reported 1 605 West Nile virus (WNV) infections, of which 1 548 (96%) were locally acquired.
The majority of locally acquired cases were reported by Italy, Greece and Romania, representing 39%, 20% and 18% of EU cases respectively.
The EU notification rate for locally acquired cases was 0.4 cases per 100 000 population, eight times higher than the rate in 2017.
For 2018, 166 deaths among locally acquired West Nile virus infections were reported, with Greece (n=51), Italy (n=49) and Romania (n=43) accounting for 86% (n=143) of them.
In 2018, the first case was reported at the end of May and the last case was reported in December.

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