Despite good access to effective antibiotics, Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumococci) is still a major cause of disease and death in both developing and developed countries. Pneumococci are the main cause of bacterial respiratory tract infections, such as pneumonia, middle ear infection, and sinusitis, in all age groups.
Poliovirus is highly contagious and infected individuals shed virus in the faeces and from oral secretions, thus the mode of transmission is person-to-person, both via the faecal-oral and the oral-oral routes.
A joint study of the National Public Health Organization in Greece (NPHO) and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) conducted in 15 Greek hospitals in 2022 sheds light on the rapid spread of carbapenemase-producing, highly drug-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae sequence type (ST) 39, following its initial documentation in a European-wide genomic survey in 2019.
The main aim of the genomic study described in this surveillance report was to determine the distribution of the highly drug-resistant clade of Klebsiella pneumoniae (sequence type (ST) 39 in Greek hospitals in 2022.
This issue of the ECDC Communicable Disease Threats Report (CDTR) covers the period 5 - 11 November 2023 and includes updates on SARS-CoV-2 variants, an overview of respiratory virus epidemiology in the EU/EEA, West Nile Virus, measles, diphtheria, Middle East respiratory virus syndrome, chikungunya, and dengue.
This report presents the results of the ninth round of the external quality assessment (EQA-9) scheme for Listeria monocytogenes (L. monocytogenes) typing, organised for national public health reference laboratories (NPHRLs) providing data to the Food- and Waterborne Diseases and Zoonoses Network (FWD-Net), managed by ECDC.
This document is an update of the joint guidance that was published in 2011 by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA).