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.
On this episode we are joined by Otilia Mårdh, Medical Epidemiologist at ECDC, to discuss the latest reports on sexually transmitted infections in Europe.
Chlamydia infection, campylobacteriosis, salmonellosis, gonorrhoea and tuberculosis were the most commonly reported notifiable infectious diseases in the EU and EEA in 2014.
They are young and mostly female: with more than 3.2 million cases between 2005 and 2014, chlamydia remains the most commonly reported sexually transmitted infection (STI) across Europe. The updated ECDC guidance on chlamydia control in Europe makes the case for national chlamydia control strategies in the EU Member States and shows ways to develop, implement or improve national or local control activities.
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.
The authors assess the risk of pertussis in children in California relative to the time since the fifth dose of DTaP from 2006 to 2011 (this period included a large outbreak in 2010).
The study compares the incidence and serotype distribution of invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) for pneumococcal meningitis and non-meningitis IPD in children from 2007 to 2010 with reference to the pre-vaccination period from 1997 to 2001 in Germany.
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.