ECDC works together with the institutions and agencies of the EU, in particular the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety (DG SANTE), the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), the European Medicines Agency (EMA), and the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA).
One Health is a multi-sectoral approach that aims to balance and optimise the health of people, animals, plants, and their shared environment, recognising their interconnection.
From 23–26 April 2024, experts from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the African Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) met in Stockholm, Sweden, to exchange expertise on surveillance, data management and epidemic intelligence.
The decline in the reported number of new transmissions of hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections across European Union (EU) and European Economic Area (EEA) countries has continued.
In this report, we provide an overview of the data reported by countries in the EU and EEA in 2023 to describe progress towards the 2025 interim targets for hepatitis elimination as outlined in the WHO European Region Action Plan 2022–2030.
In 2022, 23 273 cases of hepatitis C were reported in 29 EU/EEA countries. Excluding countries that only reported acute cases, 23 249 cases were notified, corresponding to a crude rate of 6.2 cases per 100 000 population.
Recent ECDC data show that despite progress in prevention and control efforts, the hepatitis B and hepatitis C viruses (HBV and HCV) continue to pose significant public health challenges in the European Union and European Economic Area (EU/EEA).