Pertussis is an endemic disease in the EU/EEA and worldwide. Every three to five years, larger epidemics are expected even with high vaccination coverage.
In 2019, the hajj will take place between 9 and 14 August. The risk for EU/EEA citizens to become infected with communicable diseases during the 2019 hajj is considered low, thanks to the vaccination requirements for travelling to Makkah (Mecca) and the Saudi Arabian preparedness plans that address the management of health hazards during and after hajj.
As of 30 August 2018, Algeria has reported 74 confirmed cholera cases from six northern and coastal areas of the country. This is the first cholera outbreak reported in Algeria in more than 20 years.
The production of this rapid risk assessment was triggered by a report by the Czech Republic of two travelassociated cases of cholera from Zanzibar (Tanzania) and the cholera epidemics in the Horn of Africa and the Gulf of Aden.
Illnesses caused by infectious diseases are common in children in schools or other childcare settings. Currently there is no common EU approach to the control of communicable diseases in schools or other childcare settings, and existing information is uncertain.
This Rapid Risk Assessment focuses on acellular pertussis-containing combination vaccines used in national vaccination programmes in the EU/EEA Member States.
Early in 2015, a shortage of acellular pertussis-containing vaccines was brought to the attention of ECDC. This risk assessment provides a detailed list of mitigation options available to Member States.
The recent floods in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Serbia caused substantial damage. Following the floods, there is a risk of increased transmission of vector-borne infections to the populations.
This updated rapid risk assessment assesses the potential risk for European travellers to Cuba after an outbreak of cholera in the Cuban province of Granma expanded to the provinces of Santiago de Cuba, Camagüey and Guantanamo.
New and noteworthy in this update: the retrospective identification of novel coronavirus in biological samples from two fatal cases in Jordan (April 2012) and the results of a joint ECDC/WHO survey which confirms that EU/EEA Member States have an adequate capacity to detect novel coronavirus through their network of national reference laboratories: 18 of 30 in EU/EEA countries are capable of confirming positive screened samples by either ORF1b RT-PCR or other target RT-PCR assays with sequence analysis or whole-genome sequence analysis.