On the way towards the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) for health, Europe has one important battle to take on: reducing the proportion of those living with undiagnosed HIV and viral hepatitis. Current status in the EU/EEA: one in seven people living with HIV are unaware of their infection, up to four out of 5 people living with hepatitis B and three out of four people with hepatitis C infection have not yet been diagnosed.
Denmark has reported a travel-related case of malaria caused by Plasmodium cynomolgi in a Danish traveller returning from a visit to forested areas in peninsular Malaysia and Thailand during August-September 2018.
The fifth meeting of the Hepatitis B and C Network aims to bring together experts from across the EU to discuss how Europe can improve its response to the epidemics of hepatitis B and C with a focus on surveillance, estimating prevalence, and the monitoring of response.
For 2017, 8 401 cases were reported in the EU/EEA, 8 393 (99.9%) of which were confirmed. Twenty-one confirmed cases were reported as acquired in the EU.
Targeted testing is an essential element of any strategy to eliminate viral hepatitis across the countries in the European Union and European Economic Area. Some preliminary monitoring results on the response to hepatitis B and C presented around World Hepatitis Day show that diagnosing chronic infections is still a challenge in the EU/EEA.