On 25 and 26 of July, two additional cases of soft-tissue anthrax among injecting drug users have been reported from the United Kingdom and Denmark. The genetic typing of the strains related to these cases is ongoing.
With more than 32 000 cases, gonorrhoea was the second most commonly reported sexually transmitted infection (STI) in Europe in 2010. As data from the ECDC report Gonococcal antimicrobial susceptibility surveillance in Europe 2010 illustrates, gonococci have become more resistant to common agents for treatment and show reduced susceptibility to newer antibiotics. “This indicates the risk that gonorrhoea may become an untreatable disease in the near future”, stresses ECDC Director Marc Sprenger.
This expert meeting was part of the ECDC project on chlamydia control in Europe and aimed to provide EU Member States with evidence-based information that is needed for the development and evaluation of chlamydia control strategies and to monitor progress in chlamydia control in Europe.
The authors describe the epidemiology of invasive Hib and nontype b H. influenzae infections in children <15 years of age in the United Kingdom from 1994 until 2008, and show that the resurgence in Hib disease during the years 1999-2003 did not affect the epidemiology of invasive nontype b H. influenzae disease in children, which provides further support against serotype replacement.