This core protocol for ECDC studies of vaccine effectiveness against hospitalisation with Severe Acute Respiratory Infection laboratory-confirmed with SARS-CoV-2 or with influenza, version 2.0, represents an update to the main elements for a multi-country hospital-based study of COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness in patients hospitalised with Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI), already published as version 1.0.
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.
This issue of the Communicable Disease Threats Report (CDTR) covers the period 23-29 January 2023 and includes updates on COVID-19, diphtheriae, influenza, chikungunya, dengue and poliomyelitis.
As the health systems in EU Member States gradually return to a routine operations mode, work on the priorities that the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen formulated in 2019 is expected to resume at full speed during 2023: e-health and the European Health Data Space to promote health data exchange; the implementation of the European ‘One Health’ Action Plan against Antimicrobial Resistance and the cooperation at international level on antimicrobials; as well as actions to strengthen the performance of vaccination programmes in the EU, including addressing vaccine hesitancy. These issues will remain among ECDC’s highest priorities in the years to come.