At the request of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Health and Consumers, a rapid risk assessment has been prepared concerning the outbreak of E Coli in Germany.

​Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) is a group of pathogenic Escherichia coli strains capable of producing Shiga toxins, with the potential to cause severe enteric and systemic disease in humans.

An update of the initial rapid risk assessment on the outbreak of E. Coli in Germany, prepared at the request of the European Commission, first published on 27 May 2011.

This document is an update of the EFSA/ECDC joint rapid risk assessment of 29 June and aims to add new information to this and earlier initial rapid risk assessments (27 May and 14 June 2011).

Influenza of swine origin detected retrospectively in a human with illness in November 2008. Swine influenza (SI) is an acute viral infection of the respiratory tract in pigs. Subclinical infections are also common. The mortality is low and recovery usually occurs within 7-10 days.

Based on current evidence, it is not possible to confirm or exclude a causal relationship between detection of the new orthobunyavirus and the observed clinical symptoms in cattle and small livestock.

The results of two, as yet unpublished, investigations of laboratory-induced genetic changes in avian influenza A(H5N1) viruses have been reported to have found that a surprisingly few number of changes make the viruses transmissible between ferrets, the most commonly used model for the way influenza behaves in humans. The possibility that this could have resulted in the development in laboratories of A(H5N1) influenza viruses transmissible between humans has caused concern for public safety and generated unusually high levels of debate in the scientific community. This report summarises and explains the complex public health and scientific issues around these developments including the positive and negative aspects of some of the responses that have been proposed internationally.

This updated rapid risk assessment was prepared jointly with the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Germany, and the National Institute of Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), Netherlands.

Following reports of two cases of anthrax among injecting drug users in Germany, ECDC and EMCDDA jointly prepared a rapid risk assessment.