One in 2 people living with HIV are diagnosed late in the course of their infection. So late, that two out of three people with AIDS in the EU/EEA receive their diagnosis within only three months of discovering they had HIV. For World AIDS Day 2017, ECDC highlighted the problem of late diagnosis and the need for diversifying HIV testing approaches.
The WHO European Region is the only Region worldwide where the number of new HIV infections is rising. With more than 160 000 people newly diagnosed with HIV across the Region, including more than 29 000 new cases from the European Union and European Economic Area (EU/EEA), this trend continued in 2016.
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.
An estimated 122 000 people living with HIV across Europe are not aware of their HIV infection and a large number out of the estimated 9 million Europeans that are affected by chronic hepatitis B or C have not yet been tested or diagnosed. ECDC welcomes the efforts of European HIV-Hepatitis Testing Week which starts today.
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.
A study published in The Lancet HIV today showed that while the rate of newly reported HIV cases in Europe remained steady in younger people between 2004 and 2015, it increased by 2% each year overall in older people. With around 30 000 newly diagnosed HIV infections reported each year over the last decade, the HIV epidemic remains a significant public health problem in the 31 countries of the European Union and European Economic Area (EU/EEA),
On 10 September 2017, French authorities reported to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) three cases of typhoid fever linked to the European Rainbow gathering that took place in Tramonti di Sopra, Friuli-Venezia Giulia region, Italy, from 23 July to 21 August 2017.