This report is the latest in a series published jointly by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the WHO Regional Office for Europe that has been summarizing data on HIV and AIDS in the WHO European Region and in the European Union and European Economic Area (EU/EEA) since 2007.
The number of people living with undiagnosed HIV is increasing in the WHO European Region. According to data published today by ECDC and the WHO/Europe, more than 136 000 people were newly diagnosed in 2019 – roughly 20% of these were diagnosed in the EU/EAA and 80% in the eastern part of the European Region. Every second HIV diagnosis (53%) happens at a late stage of the infection, when the immune system has already started to fail. This is a sign that testing strategies in the Region are not working properly to diagnose HIV early.
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.
For 2018, 30 EU/EEA Member States reported 24 588 cases of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. When the five countries that only reported acute cases are excluded, the number of cases is 24 034, which corresponds to a crude rate of 6.0 cases per 100 000 population.
In 2018, 37 527 cases of hepatitis C were reported in 29 EU/EEA Member States. The number is 37 427 when countries that only reported acute cases are excluded, which corresponds to a crude rate of 8.8 cases per 100 000 population.
This report provides the first collation of data relating to the monitoring of the progress towards the elimination of hepatitis B and C for EU/EEA countries.