In a hearing at the European Parliament in Brussels, ECDC Director Marc Sprenger underlined the importance of sufficient resources at national level to diagnose and adequately treat tuberculosis.
This workshop enabled all to agree on the relevance of EPIS VPD to be used as a platform for the reporting and monitoring of measles outbreak in the EU, agree on the type of information to be reported, the nature of outbreaks to be notified and the further usage by ECDC (e.g. European Monthly Measles Monitoring1) and other Member States of data that will be shared through EPIS VPD by countries.
To mark World Tuberculosis Day on 24 March 2012, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the WHO Regional Office for Europe publish their joint report, Tuberculosis surveillance and monitoring in Europe 2012.
A meeting and a workshop on the ECDC point prevalence survey (PPS) of healthcare-associated infections and antimicrobial use in acute care hospitals took take place in London on 5-6 March 2012.
Despite a reduction in pertussis among younger children and infants, rates of pertussis-related sickness and death remain high compared with rates for other vaccine-preventable diseases in England and Wales.
In a recent scientific article (Udwadia, F et al. Clin. Infect. Dis. 2011, Dec 21, Eprint) four cases of so-called total drug resistant tuberculosis (TB) were reported from India.
This study demonstrates that PCV13 is immunogenic and safe in children previously vaccinated with PCV7. By eliciting high antibacterial immune responses to the additional serotypes, PCV13 provides protection against these serotypes, which are important causes of pneumococcal disease globally.
The evidence presented in the article strongly supports the notion that serotype replacement has occurred in invasive pneumococcal disease in most populations and is caused by the vaccine.