Due to the concerning rise in sexually transmitted infection (STIs) transmission across Europe, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) is urging everyone to keep informed and practice safer sex as they leave for holidays, festivals, and travel this summer season.
In a concerted effort to combat healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) and antimicrobial resistance (AMR), the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the Belgian EU Presidency on 6-7 May co-hosted a conference at the national public health institute of Belgium, Sciensano, in Brussels.
Nearly 7,000 excess deaths from tuberculosis occurred in the WHO European Region in the three years of the pandemic from 2020 - 2022, compared to what experts had expected based on pre-2020 estimates.
Since the most recent ECDC rapid risk assessment in 2021, the number of EU/EEA countries reporting hypervirulent Klebsiella pneumoniae (hvKp) sequence type (ST) 23 has increased from four to ten and the number of cases reported to ECDC by the countries, increased from 12 to 143.
ECDC urges EU/EEA Member States to strengthen vaccination campaigns and prepare for the possible need to increase emergency department and ICU capacity, as well as to consider a number of public health measures to reduce the impact of respiratory pathogens circulating this winter, in latest epidemiological update.
To assess the level of preparedness of EU/EEA Member States to respond to zoonotic avian flu outbreaks, ECDC has carried out two surveys - one assessing the laboratory capacity for molecular diagnosis and characterisation of zoonotic influenza viruses, and the other focusing on measures applied to protect exposed people during outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza.