ECDC and the WHO Regional Office for Europe (WHO/Europe) recently concluded a crucial joint meeting focused on enhancing tuberculosis (TB) surveillance and monitoring across the WHO European Region.
An ECDC expert was in Zambia from 25 March to support in the response to the recent cholera outbreak as part of and funded by the ‘ECDC for Africa CDC’ project.
European Immunization Week (EIW) is marked across Europe every year in the final week of April. It aims to raise awareness of the importance of immunisation for the general health and well-being of the European and wider population.
In connection with the European Immunization Week, ECDC releases data indicating an increase in cases of vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles and pertussis, after decreased levels during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nearly 7,000 excess deaths from tuberculosis occurred in the WHO European Region in the three years of the pandemic from 2020 - 2022, compared to what experts had expected based on pre-2020 estimates.
Measles cases are expected to continue increasing in the EU/EEA in the coming months due to sub-optimal vaccination coverage for measles-containing vaccines (MCV) in a number of EU/EEA countries.
At the start of European Immunization Week, the ECDC report “Poliomyelitis situation update” reveals that between 2012 and 2021, approximately 2.4 million children in the EU/EEA may have not received three doses of polio-containing vaccines on time. Additionally, the newly published ECDC “Measles Annual Epidemiological Report 2022” highlights the risks when having pockets of an under-vaccinated population or groups not immunised at all.