The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has coordinated an investigation to trace food items connected with a multinational outbreak of hepatitis A.

​As of 6 August 2013, the Danish, Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish public health institutes reported 106 cases associated with the hepatitis A virus (HAV) infection outbreak affecting their countries since 1 October 2012. Of these, 64 were confirmed and 42 were probable.

ECDC Director Marc Sprenger at the European Parliament Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) stressed the importance of the EU’s continuous commitment in the fight against hepatitis B and hepatitis C.

1 173 confirmed hepatitis A cases involving three separate clusters have been reported across 15 countries of the European Union since June 2016. Several EU countries have seen large increases in hepatitis A cases in 2017 compared to previous years, and these are mainly affecting men who have sex with men.

Since the last ECDC rapid risk assessment, which was published on 24 February 2017, 10 EU Member States (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden and the United Kingdom (Public Health England and Health Protection Scotland) reported 387 new confirmed cases of hepatitis A, with one of the strains matching the three clusters currently circulating in the EU.

Hepatitis and other drug-related infectious diseases will be the focus of ‘Hepatitis week’, taking place at the EU drugs agency (EMCDDA) in Lisbon from 12–16 June 2017. The initiative will bring together some 100 specialists from: EU Member States, candidate and potential candidate countries to the EU, as well as partner agencies, civil society and professional organisations.

Since June 2016, 16 European countries are experiencing hepatitis A outbreaks with 1 500 reported cases involving three separate clusters that mainly affect men who have sex with men. On the occasion of World Hepatitis Day, ECDC stresses the importance of hepatitis A vaccination and safe sex practices including the use of condoms to avoid new infections. As several EU/EEA countries experience hepatitis A vaccine shortages, targeting of vaccination to groups at higher risk of infection is suggested.

Epidemiological update – overview of hepatitis A in EU countries as of 1 August 2017

Since the last rapid risk assessment on this multi-country hepatitis A outbreak, 19 EU/EEA countries (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom-England & Wales) have reported 1 363 new outbreak-confirmed cases. Outbreak-confirmed cases are EU/EEA residents with laboratory-confirmed hepatitis A virus (HAV) genotype IA and a sequence with 99.3% homology to one of the three HAV genotype IA outbreak strains (VRD_521_2016; RIVM-HAV16-090; and V16-25801) based on overlapping fragments at the VP1-2a region.

Since the last epidemiological update on this multi-country hepatitis A outbreak published on 22 December 2017, 22 EU/EEA countries (Austria, Belgium, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom-England) have reported 320 new outbreak-confirmed cases. The outbreak-confirmed cases are EU/EEA residents with laboratory-confirmed hepatitis A virus (HAV) genotype IA and a sequence with ≥99.3% homology to one of the three HAV genotype IA outbreak strains (VRD_521_2016; RIVM-HAV16-090; and V16-25801) based on overlapping fragments at the VP1-2a region.