Despite good access to effective antibiotics, Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumococci) is still a major cause of disease and death in both developing and developed countries. Pneumococci are the main cause of bacterial respiratory tract infections, such as pneumonia, middle ear infection, and sinusitis, in all age groups.
This issue of the CDTR covers the period 11 – 17 December 2022 and includes updates on COVID-19, diphtheria, measles, streptococcal infection, invasive meningococcal disease, poliomyelitis, influenza, mass gathering monitoring, and Ebola virus disease.
This report provides an analysis of the external quality assessment (EQA) for the antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) performance of laboratories participating in the European Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance Network (EARS-Net) in 2019. A total of 952 laboratories (1–95 per country) from 30 EU/EEA countries participated in the EQA exercise.
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 14-24 August 2019 and includes updates on Ebola virus disease in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, monitoring environmental sustainability of Vibrio growth in the Baltic Sea, West Nile virus infection, haemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome in Croatia and Slovenia, the mass gathering of the Hajj in Saudi Arabia and Listeriosis in Spain. (Erratum (26 August 2019): On pages 2 and 5 (West Nile virus infection), the figure of eight deaths in Greece (4), Cyprus (1) and Serbia (1) has been amended to four deaths in Greece (2), Cyprus (1) and Serbia (1)