Since August 2017, France and Italy have reported the autochthonous transmission of chikungunya virus, respectively in the Var department, France and the Lazio region, Italy. The two events are involving strains from different origin and therefore are not related.
A study published in The Lancet HIV today showed that while the rate of newly reported HIV cases in Europe remained steady in younger people between 2004 and 2015, it increased by 2% each year overall in older people. With around 30 000 newly diagnosed HIV infections reported each year over the last decade, the HIV epidemic remains a significant public health problem in the 31 countries of the European Union and European Economic Area (EU/EEA),
On 11 August 2017, France gave notification of an autochthonous case of chikungunya virus infection detected in the Var Department in southern France through the Early Warning and Alert System (EWRS).
According to test results from the annual European Gonococcal Antimicrobial Surveillance Programme (Euro-GASP), resistance levels to the main antimicrobials used for treatment of gonorrhoea infection have seen an encouraging decrease since 2010.
An estimated 4.7 million Europeans are living with chronic hepatitis B and almost 4 million (3.9) with chronic hepatitis C infection. However, large numbers of them are not even aware of their infection as they have not yet been tested and diagnosed.
Hepatitis and other drug-related infectious diseases will be the focus of ‘Hepatitis week’, taking place at the EU drugs agency (EMCDDA) in Lisbon from 12–16 June 2017. The initiative will bring together some 100 specialists from: EU Member States, candidate and potential candidate countries to the EU, as well as partner agencies, civil society and professional organisations.
The continuum of HIV care is a framework that enables countries to monitor the effectiveness of their HIV response - from diagnosis towards viral suppression (which means that the virus is no longer detectable in the blood). This report provides a snapshot of the status of the continuum of care for the whole region as well as each of the 48 countries reporting at least some continuum data.
In a two-day conference organised in collaboration between the Maltese Presidency of the Council of the European Union Conference and ECDC , HIV experts from across the European Union discussed how to reverse the HIV epidemic and how to prepare Europe to achieve the set target of ending AIDS by 2030.
Chlamydia infection, campylobacteriosis, salmonellosis, gonorrhoea and tuberculosis were the most commonly reported notifiable infectious diseases in the EU and EEA in 2014.