In a two-day meeting organised by ECDC and UNAIDS, representatives of 22 European countries discussed how to improve the delivery of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) across Europe. The meeting brought together country delegates, PrEP users and community HIV advocates to seek ways to strengthen the provision and monitoring of PrEP.
Since 2010, syphilis notification rates in the EU/EAA have been on the increase, but in recent years this trend seems to accelerate, predominantly among men having sex with men. Similar trends have been observed in high-income countries outside the EU/EAA. While the overall trend remained relatively stable, outbreaks or clusters of syphilis cases have also been reported among heterosexual populations in the EU/EEA. In several high-income countries (e.g. USA, Japan), increases in congenital syphilis occurred in connection with increases in syphilis notifications among women.
One in 2 people living with HIV are diagnosed late in the course of their infection. So late, that two out of three people with AIDS in the EU/EEA receive their diagnosis within only three months of discovering they had HIV. For World AIDS Day 2017, ECDC highlighted the problem of late diagnosis and the need for diversifying HIV testing approaches.
HIV/AIDS surveillance in Europe is jointly coordinated by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the WHO Regional Office for Europe, collecting data from all 53 countries in the European region.
In 2019, 29 countries in the European Union/European Economic Area (EU/EEA) reported a total of 49 752 tuberculosis (TB) cases (9.6 per 100 000 population).
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control was asked by the European Commission to assess the risk involved in changing the testing requirements for HIV (human immunodeficiency virus), hepatitis B virus (HBV), and hepatitis C virus (HCV) with regard to the quality and safety of non-partner semen donations.
In 2022, 69 confirmed congenital syphilis cases were reported from 14 EU/EEA countries, while 11 other countries reported zero cases. For 2021, 55 cases were reported by 11 countries out of 24 contributing data.
ECDC’s annual surveillance reports provide a wealth of epidemiological data to support decision-making at the national level. They are mainly intended for public health professionals and policymakers involved in disease prevention and control programmes.
This ECDC thematic report covers key issues and priorities for action in Europe. It draws on country data reported to ECDC for Dublin Declaration monitoring and UNAIDS global reporting in 2012 and 2014 and surveillance data reported by countries to ECDC and WHO Europe since 2004.