This joint guidance by the ECDC and EMCDDA aims to strengthen the evidence base for developing national strategies for preventing and controlling infections and infectious diseases among people who inject drugs.
Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) is an obligate human pathogen and an important cause of invasive bacterial infections in both children and adults, with the highest incidence among young children.
This document is an update of the joint guidance that was published in 2011 by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA).
Viral hepatitis is an inflammation of the liver caused by a virus. The most common hepatitis viruses in Europe are types A, B, and C (commonly referred to as HAV, HBV and HCV).
This reporting protocol is intended for reporting national case-based data for surveillance of hepatitis of unknown origin from all the countries and areas of the WHO European Region, including the 27 countries of the European Union (EU) and the additional three countries of the European Economic Area (EEA), to the European level.
This document provides guidance on diagnostic testing, molecular characterisation and metagenomic analysis for suspect cases of severe acute hepatitis of unknown aetiology.
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.
European surveillance data show on-going transmission of viral hepatitis across the European Union and European Economic Area (EU/EEA). The available notification data however, do not provide a clear epidemiological picture of hepatitis C in Europe. Prevalence data from population surveys are a key source of information to complement the surveillance data for hepatitis C due to the limitations of surveillance for hepatitis: the infection is often asymptomatic and notifications are strongly influenced by local testing practices. The overarching aim of this toolkit is to gain a better understanding of the HCV epidemiology in the EU/EEA.
This operational guidance, developed by ECDC in collaboration with its hepatitis E virus (HEV) expert group, offers options on the implementation or adjustment of HEV surveillance at a national level.