Within one week, Latvia, Spain and Italy each notified a case of imported rabies. Earlier in the year, Norway had reported an additional travel-related case. Travellers to countries where rabies is enzootic should follow basic preventive measures.
To support countries in the European Union/European Economic Area (EU/EEA) in their review of preparedness system planning, ECDC launches an operational checklist for health emergency preparedness for imported cases of high consequence infectious diseases.
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 ECDC Communicable Disease Threats Report (CDTR) is a weekly bulletin for epidemiologists and health professionals on active public health threats. This issue covers the period from 21 to 27 July 2019 and includes updates on poliomyelitis, cholera, Ebola virus disease, monitoring environmental sustainability of Vibrio growth in the Baltic Sea, West Nile virus infection and falsified rabies vaccine in the Philippines.
The recommendation from ECDC follows reports of falsified rabies vaccines and anti-rabies serum circulating in the Philippines and is aimed at travellers who have received the vaccine or serum after possible exposure to rabies.
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.