A new report published today by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the WHO Regional Office for Europe indicates that the number of new tuberculosis (TB) patients has been decreasing at an average rate of 4.3% per year in the WHO European Region over the last decade.
One in 2 people living with HIV are diagnosed late in the course of their infection. So late, that two out of three people with AIDS in the EU/EEA receive their diagnosis within only three months of discovering they had HIV. For World AIDS Day 2017, ECDC highlighted the problem of late diagnosis and the need for diversifying HIV testing approaches.
The WHO European Region is the only Region worldwide where the number of new HIV infections is rising. With more than 160 000 people newly diagnosed with HIV across the Region, including more than 29 000 new cases from the European Union and European Economic Area (EU/EEA), this trend continued in 2016.
An estimated 122 000 people living with HIV across Europe are not aware of their HIV infection and a large number out of the estimated 9 million Europeans that are affected by chronic hepatitis B or C have not yet been tested or diagnosed. ECDC welcomes the efforts of European HIV-Hepatitis Testing Week which starts today.
A study published in The Lancet HIV today showed that while the rate of newly reported HIV cases in Europe remained steady in younger people between 2004 and 2015, it increased by 2% each year overall in older people. With around 30 000 newly diagnosed HIV infections reported each year over the last decade, the HIV epidemic remains a significant public health problem in the 31 countries of the European Union and European Economic Area (EU/EEA),
According to test results from the annual European Gonococcal Antimicrobial Surveillance Programme (Euro-GASP), resistance levels to the main antimicrobials used for treatment of gonorrhoea infection have seen an encouraging decrease since 2010.
An estimated 4.7 million Europeans are living with chronic hepatitis B and almost 4 million (3.9) with chronic hepatitis C infection. However, large numbers of them are not even aware of their infection as they have not yet been tested and diagnosed.
Hepatitis and other drug-related infectious diseases will be the focus of ‘Hepatitis week’, taking place at the EU drugs agency (EMCDDA) in Lisbon from 12–16 June 2017. The initiative will bring together some 100 specialists from: EU Member States, candidate and potential candidate countries to the EU, as well as partner agencies, civil society and professional organisations.