This will be the first joint meeting of the EARS-Net and HAI-Net Coordination groups. The meeting will address epidemiological, microbiological and technical aspects related to surveillance and reporting of antimicrobial resistance and healthcare-associated infections.
In July–November 2009, 26 European Union Member States, Norway and Iceland, participated in a survey seeking information on national tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) vaccination recommendations.
European and Asian viruses within the tick-borne encephalitis Flavivirus complex are known to show temporal, spatial and phylogenetic relationships that imply a clinal pattern of evolution.
This paper is a really nice analysis of results provided by a national tick surveillance program conducted from 2005 and 2009 in Great Britain by HPA. This study shows that useful information on tick distribution and ecology can be obtained from passive surveillance based on punctual records from public, veterinarians, clinicians, wildlife charities and academics from across Great Britain.
In this paper, the authors present results produced by a two-year screening study on ticks from Sardinia for different tick-associated pathogens. They show that Rhipicephalus sanguineus is predominant and presents the most important diversity of pathogens, with its counterpart Rhipicephalus turanicus.
The meeting will take place on 21-22 June 2010 in Udine, Italy. It is held under the outsourced ECDC project “Infection control training needs assessment in the European Union” (contract awarded to University of Udine, Italy), which aims to produce a report on the assessment of infection control training needs, and proposal for future ECDC support to infection control training.