The food-borne infections listeriosis and shigatoxigenic Escherichia coli are increasing in the EU/EEA and were in 2022 at levels higher than before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Hepatitis A cases in 2021 were at their lowest levels since EU-level hepatitis A surveillance began in 2007, while five other food and waterborne diseases are rising towards pre-pandemic levels. The information is revealed in the Annual Epidemiological Report 2021, of which six chapters are published today by ECDC.
A number of European countries (including Ireland, France, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom) indicate an increase seen during 2022, particularly since September 2022, in the number of cases of invasive Group A Streptococcus (iGAS) disease among children less than ten years of age.
Nearly one in three foodborne outbreaks in the EU in 2018 were caused by Salmonella. This is one of the main findings of the annual report on trends and sources of zoonoses published today by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).
The study design and analysis controlled for influence of potentially confounding trends, such as improvement of day-care carriage and decreasing prevalence of smoking during the study period.
The study compares the incidence and serotype distribution of invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) for pneumococcal meningitis and non-meningitis IPD in children from 2007 to 2010 with reference to the pre-vaccination period from 1997 to 2001 in Germany.
This study found a marked reduction in vaccine serotype carriage after PCV7 implementation. The overall pneumococcal, H. influenzae and S. aureus carriage decreased slightly, but not significantly.
This study demonstrates that PCV13 is immunogenic and safe in children previously vaccinated with PCV7. By eliciting high antibacterial immune responses to the additional serotypes, PCV13 provides protection against these serotypes, which are important causes of pneumococcal disease globally.