ECDC and EMA have issued a joint statement on adapted COVID-19 vaccines and considerations for their use during the upcoming autumn 2023 vaccination campaigns.
ECDC presents lessons learned from the response of Europe’s public health sector to the pandemic and highlights follow up actions addressing relevant issues which could improve Europe’s pandemic preparedness.
At the start of European Immunization Week, the ECDC report “Poliomyelitis situation update” reveals that between 2012 and 2021, approximately 2.4 million children in the EU/EEA may have not received three doses of polio-containing vaccines on time. Additionally, the newly published ECDC “Measles Annual Epidemiological Report 2022” highlights the risks when having pockets of an under-vaccinated population or groups not immunised at all.
To decrease the impact of COVID-19, and related hospitalisations and mortality, countries should plan for a continued roll-out of COVID vaccines in 2023.
Since June 2017, a persistent cross-border outbreak of Salmonella Virchow ST16 has been ongoing in five EU/EEA countries, the UK, and the US, according to a Rapid Outbreak Assessment released by ECDC and EFSA today.
ECDC and WHO/Europe have issued a statement announcing that the European Region remains a long way from meeting its End Tuberculosis Strategy targets, despite having the tools to do so.