This report collects all COVID-19 long-term care facilities (LTCF) data reported to ECDC from 2021 and concludes the EU/EEA LTCF COVID-19 specific surveillance data collection from 2021-2023.
HelicsWin.Net (also referred to as HWN) is a software application developed for the manual entry of data of the ECDC HAI-Net surveillance of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs).
The overall aim of the protocol is to support the implementation of a PPS of HAIs and antimicrobial use in European long-term care facilities, to meet the abovementioned objectives for ECDC surveillance.
In 2016–2017, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) organised the third point prevalence survey (PPS) of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) and antimicrobial use in European long-term care facilities (LTCFs) or HALT-3.
The main aim of this activity is to collect information on the severity of breakthrough COVID-19 infections in outbreaks at long-term care facilities (LTCFs) and to obtain an estimate of relative risk of infection for vaccinated residents and staff members in these settings, by SARS-CoV-2 variant, vaccine product and number of vaccine doses.
ECDC has worked with EU/EEA countries to develop a methodology for regular national reporting of existing national surveillance data on COVID-19 in LTCFs, aiming for maximum feasibility. This is to enable ECDC to communicate timely information on epidemiological trends of COVID-19 in LTCFs, in support of national and EU/EEA-level preparedness and response activities.
Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreaks in long-term care facilities (LTCFs) in European Union and European Economic Area (EU/EEA) countries have caused significant morbidity and mortality since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This surveillance protocol seeks to enable countries to report their existing national surveillance data on COVID-19 in LTCFs easily and regularly. This will enable ECDC to report national trends in the EU/EEA, with the aim of providing all EU/EEA countries with timely information to support their preparedness activities for LTCFs.