This protocol describes a survey undertaken to acquire a snapshot of the distribution of Clostridioides difficile strains in tertiary acute care hospitals in the European Union/European Economic Area (EU/EEA) in 2022–2023
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.
Joint statement by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, European Chemicals Agency, European Environment Agency, European Food Safety Authority and European Medicines Agency.
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).
Since the risk assessment published by ECDC in August 2021 on the risk of vCJD disease transmission via blood and PDMP manufactured from donations obtained in the UK, no new cases of vCJD associated with dietary exposure or transfusion of blood or blood components have been reported in EU/EEA or in the rest of the world.
Version 6.1 is the final protocol for the third EU-wide point prevalence survey in acute care hospitals (PPS 2022–2023). It contains important changes compared to protocol version 5.3 (PPS 2016–2017), including on healthcare-associated COVID-19.
The Protocol is targeted at the national public health reference laboratories to guide the susceptibility testing needed for EU surveillance and the reporting to ECDC.
This document provides laboratories with a single protocol for producing recombinant full-length hamster prion protein and using it to perform the Real-Time Quaking-Induced Conversion assay (RT-QuIC), which can distinguish sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (sCJD) from variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD).
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.