The sixth European Scientific Conference on Applied Infectious Disease Epidemiology (ESCAIDE) opened today at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre (EICC).
Findings in this study confirmed the herd immunity effect of immunizing young children, since invasive meningococcal disease was not only reduced among vaccinees, but in all age groups.
While many European countries are progressing towards TB elimination, the target of less than 1 TB case/ 1,000,000 population is still far from being achieved everywhere. This was one of the messages presented today by ECDC Director Marc Sprenger during the joint session with WHO "Towards elimination of tuberculosis" at the European Respiratory Society annual congress.
The focus of the 2012 TB surveillance network meeting was the performance indicators of TB programmes and on enhancement and harmonisation of treatment outcome monitoring (TOM) of MDR-TB.
ECDC and the European Respiratory Society (ERS) have developed 21 patient-centred standards that aim to guide clinicians and public health workers in their daily work to ensure optimal diagnosis, treatment and prevention of tuberculosis (TB) in Europe. Nearly 74 000 reported TB cases in the EU/EEA in 2010 clearly show that tuberculosis remains a public health challenge across the region.
In a hearing at the European Parliament in Brussels, ECDC Director Marc Sprenger underlined the importance of sufficient resources at national level to diagnose and adequately treat tuberculosis.