This report from the ECDC country visit to Finland in October 2012 provides an overview of Finland’s national strategies and programmes for HIV and sexually transmitted diseases.
The sixth edition of the Annual Epidemiological Report on communicable diseases in Europe provides a comprehensive summary of surveillance data for 2010 and an analysis of the public health threats detected in 2011 through ECDC’s routine epidemic intelligence.
Following an invitation from Greek authorities, a team of experts from ECDC, the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) and the WHO Regional Office for Europe visited Greece in May 2012.
In May 2011, the European Commission asked ECDC to estimate the change in total exposure risk to hepatitis B (HBV), hepatitis C (HCV) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) during reproductive cell handling and storage for secondary parties, if the current scheme of testing at each cell donation would change to testing partner donors of reproductive cells once or twice a year.
This ECDC surveillance report on sexually transmitted infections (STI) in Europe covers 20 years of surveillance data collection and analyses the basic trends and epidemiological features of the five STI under EU surveillance: syphilis, congenital syphilis, gonorrhoea, chlamydia and lymphogranuloma venereum (LGV).
The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) remains one of the most important communicable diseases in Europe. It is an infection associated with serious disease, persistently high costs of treatment and care, significant number of deaths and shortened life expectancy.
Since 2008, ECDC and the WHO Regional Office for Europe co-ordinate enhanced HIV/AIDS surveillance in Europe covering all 53 countries in the WHO European Region.
HIV is a virus which attacks the immune system and causes a lifelong severe illness with a long incubation period. The end-stage of the infection, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), results from the destruction of the immune system.
Following a request by the Romanian government, ECDC conducted a second follow-up country visit to Romania covering HIV, sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and hepatitis B and C from 11–13 May 2011.