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Influenza is a contagious respiratory illness caused by influenza viruses that infect the nose, throat, and sometimes the lungs. It can cause mild to severe illness, and at times can lead to death. The best way to prevent flu is by getting a flu vaccine each year.
The information contained in this factsheet is intended for the purpose of general information and should not substitute individual expert advice and judgement of healthcare professionals.
Yellow fever (YF) is a mosquito-borne infection, distributed in west, central and east Africa and in South America. The disease can cause a wide spectrum of symptoms, from mild to fatal. In severe cases there may be spontaneous haemorrhage. Mortality of these clinical cases can be as high as 80%, on a par with Ebola, Marburg and other haemorrhagic viral infections.
Most Zika virus infections are either asymptomatic or cause a mild illness with a transient maculopapular rash. However, there is scientific consensus that Zika virus is a cause of microcephaly, congenital nervous system malformations and Guillain-Barré syndrome.
Ciguatera fish poisoning (CFP) is the most common reported illness caused by marine biotoxin in food. It is caused by eating fish that have accumulated ciguatoxins (CTXs) due to feeding on toxic microalgae (Gambierdiscus spp. and Fukuyoa spp.)
Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer after breast cancer to affect women aged 15–44 years in the European Union. Each year, there are around 33 000 cases of cervical cancer in the EU, and 15 000 deaths.
A pandemic is the rapid spread of a new human influenza around the world. Influenza pandemics happen when a new strain of a flu virus appears which can infect humans, to which most people have no immunity and which can transmit efficiently from human to human.