STEC infection cases - Annual Epidemiological Report for 2023

European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. STEC infection. In: ECDC. Annual epidemiological report for 2023. Stockholm: ECDC; 2025.

Surveillance and monitoring
  • Publication series: Annual Epidemiological Report
  • Time period covered: This report is based on data for 2023 retrieved from The European Surveillance System (TESSy) on 4 September 2024.
For 2023, 30 European Union/European Economic Area (EU/EEA) countries reported 10 901 confirmed cases of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) infection.

Key facts

  • The overall EU/EEA notification rate was 3.2 cases per 100 000 population, the highest annual notification rate since the start of the EU/EEA-wide surveillance.
  • In 2023, the rate was highest in children under five years of age with 13.7 cases per 100 000population for males and 13.1 cases per 100 000 population for females.
  • The confirmed haemolytic-uremic syndrome (HUS) cases were comparable to 2022, when cases increased after a stable trend during the pandemic years in the EU/EEA. Among the 522 HUS cases reported, the majority were in the youngest age groups, from 0–4 years (60%) to 5–14 years (19%). 
    However, the highest proportion of the deceased cases with HUS were over 60 years old.
Publication file

STEC infection cases Annual Epidemiological Report for 2023

English (1.1 MB - PDF)

All annual epidemiological reports on STEC

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