This time we sit down with Barbara Albiger - ECDC expert specialising in scientific processes, who explains the steps of preparing scientific recommendations and advice.
On 15 November, the Advisory Board of the Training Programs in Epidemiology and Public Health Interventions (TEPHINET) officially approved the Mediterranean and Black Sea Programme in Intervention Epidemiology Training (MediPIET) as a full member.
This guidance document includes an updated summary of diagnostic PCR and serology together with detailed information on isolation, culture, identification and epidemiological typing of B. pertussis to help users choose the best methods within the local technical and financial provisions.
This scientific report provides an overview of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus detections in poultry, captive and wild birds as well as noteworthy outbreaks of low pathogenic avian influenza (LPAI) virus in poultry and captive birds, and human cases due to avian influenza virus that occurred in and outside Europe between 10 September and 2 December 2022.
In 2021, 2 268 confirmed cases of listeriosis were reported by 30 EU/EEA Member States. The EU/EEA notification rate was 0.51 per 100 000 population. Germany, France, and Italy had the highest numbers of reported cases (560, 435 and 241, respectively), corresponding to 54.5% of all cases reported in the EU/EEA. The highest incidence rates were observed in Iceland, Finland, and Denmark. Figure 1 illustrates the country-specific age-standardised rates per 100 000 population.
For 2021, 6 534 confirmed cases of STEC infection were reported by 30 EU/EEA countries (Table 1). Twenty-seven countries reported at least two confirmed cases, and three countries reported no cases. The EU/EEA notification rate was 2.2 cases per 100 000 population, representing a 37.5% increase compared with the previous year.
Hepatitis A cases in 2021 were at their lowest levels since EU-level hepatitis A surveillance began in 2007, while five other food and waterborne diseases are rising towards pre-pandemic levels. The information is revealed in the Annual Epidemiological Report 2021, of which six chapters are published today by ECDC.
For 2021, 6 876 confirmed cases of yersiniosis (caused by Yersinia enterocolitica and Y. pseudotuberculosis) were reported by 28 EU/EEA countries with an overall rate of 1.9 cases per 100 000 population. This represented an increase of 11.8% on 2020 and the pre-pandemic period (2017−2019). As in previous years, Germany accounted for the highest number of cases, followed by France. These two countries accounted for 49% of all confirmed yersiniosis cases in the EU/EEA. Denmark had the highest notification rate of 7.8 cases per 100 000 population, followed by Finland, Lithuania and Czechia (Table 1, Figure 1).
Thirty-three percent of 1 649 yersiniosis cases with known information were hospitalised. No deaths were reported among the 3 659 cases with known outcome.
In 2021, 30 EU/EEA countries reported 3 864 cases of hepatitis A (Table 1). The EU/EEA notification rate was 0.9 cases per 100 000 population. In 2021, both the lowest number of reported cases and the lowest notification rate were reported since the beginning of EU-level hepatitis A surveillance in 2007. The total number of hepatitis A cases reported in EU/EEA countries in 2021 represented a decrease of 65.7% and 12.3% compared to 2019 and 2020, respectively.
In 2021, 60 494 laboratory-confirmed cases of salmonellosis were reported, out of which 73 were fatal. The EU/EEA notification rate for salmonellosis was 16.6 cases per 100 000 population.