Seasonal influenza is a vaccine-preventable disease and annual influenza vaccination is the most effective way to prevent influenza. ECDC continues to emphasise that all Europeans who are recommended to have the influenza vaccine should get vaccinated.
The clinical surveillance of influenza in the European Influenza Surveillance Network (EISN) is generally based on reports made by sentinel general practitioners. Some of the sentinel surveillance systems also include paediatricians and physicians with other specialisations. The physicians usually represent 1-5% of physicians working in the country or region.
Since the beginning of the 2023 transmission season and as of 25 October 2023, EU/EEA countries have reported 673 human cases of WNV infection. Since the beginning of the 2023 transmission season, 128 outbreaks among equids and 231 outbreaks among birds have been reported by EU/EEA countries.
ECDC and World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Europe have jointly developed the European Respiratory Virus Surveillance Summary (ERVISS), an interactive surveillance data dashboard for influenza, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) that also features a weekly epidemiological summary.
There are general objectives for integrated surveillance of respiratory viruses in the European Union. These objectives apply to surveillance of influenza, COVID-19, and other respiratory virus infections.
This issue of the ECDC Communicable Disease Threats Report (CDTR) covers the period 15-22 October 2023 and includes updates on respiratory virus epidemiology in the EU/EEA, SARS-CoV-2 variant classification, cryptosporidiosis, dengue, West Nile virus, and mass gathering monitoring for the Rugby World Cup.