European Immunization Week (EIW) is marked across Europe every year in the final week of April. It aims to raise awareness of the importance of immunisation for the general health and well-being of the European and wider population.
In connection with the European Immunization Week, ECDC releases data indicating an increase in cases of vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles and pertussis, after decreased levels during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Since the latest ECDC-EFSA rapid outbreak assessment published on 12 December 2017, 15 EU/EEA countries (Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Slovenia, Sweden and United Kingdom) have reported 336 confirmed, 94 probable and 3 new historical-confirmed cases associated with this ongoing multi-country outbreak of Salmonella Enteritidis in the EU/EEA.
An outbreak of diphtheria is currently being experienced in Yemen and Venezuela. One hundred and twenty diphtheria cases have been reported in Yemen in the last two months, while Venezuela has seen more than 500 probable cases in 2017, as detailed in today’s Communicable Disease Threat Report.
Since the previous ECDC epidemiological update was published on 30 June 2017, seven EU/EEA countries (Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom) have reported 96 confirmed and 34 probable new cases associated with the multi-country outbreak of Salmonella Enteritidis with MLVA profiles 2-9-7-3-2 or 2-9-6-3-2 ongoing in the EU/EEA.
Since the ECDC and EFSA joint rapid outbreak assessment was published on 7 March 2017, six EU Member States (Belgium, France, Italy, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom) have reported 50 confirmed and 12 probable new cases associated with the multi-country outbreak of Salmonella Enteritidis phage type 8 infections (MLVA profiles 2-9-7-3-2 and 2-9-6-3-2) ongoing in the EU/EEA. In addition, twelve probable cases have been reclassified as confirmed.
An international consensus study on standardisation of a widely developed molecular subtyping method for Salmonella Typhimurium, multiple loci variable-number tandem repeat analysis (MLVA), was published by Nadon et al. in Eurosurveillance on 29 August 2013
The study design and analysis controlled for influence of potentially confounding trends, such as improvement of day-care carriage and decreasing prevalence of smoking during the study period.