Chikungunya is not endemic in the EU/EEA and the majority of the cases are travellers infected outside of the EU/EEA. When the environmental conditions are favourable, in areas where Ae. albopictus is established, viraemic travel-related cases may generate a local transmission of the virus as demonstrated by the sporadic events of chikungunya virus transmission since 2007.
Hantavirus infections are widely distributed across Europe, with the exception of some Mediterranean countries which reported a very low number of cases.
On 14-15 January 2015 an ECDC consultation gathered public health experts, entomologists and epidemiologists from Europe, as well as experts from WHO, CDC and PacNet, to review the EU preparedness to dengue and chikungunya importation and onwards transmission and produce a roadmap towards improved EU preparedness.
ECDC promotes the performance of external quality assessment (EQA) schemes, in which laboratories are sent simulated clinical specimens or bacterial isolates for testing by routine or reference laboratory methods. EQA schemes, or laboratory proficiency testing, provide information about the accuracy of different characterisation and typing methods as well as antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) and the sensitivity of the methods in place to detect a certain pathogen or novel resistance patterns.
An outbreak of chikungunya in the Caribbean region was reported from the French part of the island of Saint Martin on 6 December 2013. Since then, autochthonous transmission of chikungunya has been reported from several islands in the Caribbean. For the first time, local cases of chikungunya were reported in South America (French Guiana).