The clinical surveillance of influenza in the European Influenza Surveillance Network (EISN) is generally based on reports made by sentinel general practitioners. Some of the sentinel surveillance systems also include paediatricians and physicians with other specialisations. The physicians usually represent 1-5% of physicians working in the country or region.
ECDC and World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Europe have jointly developed the European Respiratory Virus Surveillance Summary (ERVISS), an interactive surveillance data dashboard for influenza, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) that also features a weekly epidemiological summary.
There are general objectives for integrated surveillance of respiratory viruses in the European Union. These objectives apply to surveillance of influenza, COVID-19, and other respiratory virus infections.
Compared with the 2021‑2022 influenza season, for sentinel surveillance the number of tested specimens has
doubled, with a 4‑fold increase in influenza detections.
As autumn moves to winter, the WHO/Europe, EC and ECDC are issuing a clear, urgent message: people who remain unprotected against both COVID-19 and seasonal influenza – especially the most vulnerable and at-risk – should take up any offer for vaccination to prevent or mitigate the impact of these co-circulating respiratory infections.
This issue of the ECDC Communicable Disease Threats Report (CDTR) covers the period 24-30 September 2023 and includes updates on severe floods, Severe floods, Avian influenza, human cases with swine influenza, COVID-19, West Nile Virus, Cholera and mass gathering monitoring for the Rugby World Cup 2023.
In a technical report published today, ECDC, proposes a targeted testing approach in areas with ongoing avian influenza outbreaks in poultry and detections in wild birds and other animals, focusing on severe respiratory or unexplained neurological disease.
This report provides an overview of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus detections in poultry, captive and wild birds that occurred in and outside Europe between 24 June and 1 September 2023, as well as HPAI virus detections in mammals (up to 15 September 2023) and human cases due to avian influenza virus (up to 14 September
2023).