This report presents the epidemiological situation for vaccine-preventable diseases – invasive bacterial diseases (invasive Haemophilus influenzae, meningococcal and pneumococcal disease) as of 2012 and describes the statistical and epidemiological methods used.
The Annual Epidemiological Report 2014 gives an overview of the epidemiology of communicable diseases of public health significance in Europe, drawn from surveillance information on the 52 communicable diseases and health issues for which surveillance is mandatory in the European Union and European Economic Area countries.
The third meeting of the International Health Regulations Emergency Committee, held from 2-7 November 2014, regarding the international spread of wild poliovirus, states that the situation still constitutes a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).
The conclusions of the expert discussions on 31 July 2014 confirmed that conditions for a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) continue to be met for wild poliovirus i.e. that the international spread of polio in 2014 continues to constitute an extraordinary event and a public health risk to other states for which a coordinated international response continues to be essential.
In response to the correspondence published in The Lancet, “Polio emergence in Syria and Israel endangers Europe”, ECDC replied clarifying the Centre’s recommendations to Member States.
In May 2012 a collection of five strains of Haemophilus spp was sent to 28 participating reference laboratories in the IBD-labnet surveillance network for quality assurance testing. The laboratories were asked to characterise the five strains by performing standard laboratory protocols for the methods usually used by the laboratory for: species identification, biotyping and serotyping by serological methods and/or PCR.
The results of this EQA are published in the this report.
The results of this external quality assurance distribution have shown that European Haemophilus reference laboratories differ in the level of characterisation of strains, ranging from simple speciation to full identification and typing. All but two laboratories routinely phenotypically serotype isolates. Fifteen laboratories (52%) performed PCR-based capsular genotyping, 23 laboratories (79%) reported antimicrobial susceptibility testing results.