Urgent action is required to improve efforts to prevent hepatitis B and C infections in the EU/EEA and the UK if the region is to meet the 2020 targets for the elimination of viral hepatitis as a serious threat to public health. Significant gaps in the reported data in relation to prevalence and prevention of HBV and HCV in EU/EEA and the UK present a major challenge to monitoring progress towards the targets for elimination of hepatitis.
This issue of the ECDC Communicable Disease Threats Report (CDTR) covers the period 11-17 October 2020 and includes updates on COVID-19 associated with SARS-CoV-2, malaria, West Nile virus, influenza, Ebola virus disease - eleventh outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Poliomyelitis.
This issue of the ECDC Communicable Disease Threats Report (CDTR) covers the period 30 August - 5 Sep 2020 and includes updates on COVID-19, Ebola virus disease, MERS, Dengue, CCHF, West Nile Virus.
ECDC coordinates the enhanced surveillance for hepatitis A, B and C to help countries define epidemiological trends or transmission patterns among newly diagnosed cases.
World Hepatitis Day on 28 July provides an opportunity each year to increase the awareness and understanding of viral hepatitis.
Approximately four in five people living with hepatitis B and three out of four people with hepatitis C infection across the European Union and European Economic Area (EU/EEA) and the UK have not yet been diagnosed. This is a major obstacle on the way towards the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) for health in 2030 as highlighted by ECDC on occasion of World Hepatitis Day.
For 2018, 30 EU/EEA Member States reported 24 588 cases of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. When the five countries that only reported acute cases are excluded, the number of cases is 24 034, which corresponds to a crude rate of 6.0 cases per 100 000 population.