Weekly updates: 2019 West Nile virus transmission season

Situation update

Between 22 and 28 November 2019, one human case of West Nile virus infection has been reported by Turkey. The case had a disease onset from week 35 and was reported from an area that has been affected previously. No deaths were reported this week.  

In the same time period, Spain reported one outbreak among equids to the Animal Disease Notification System (ADNS).

The most recent onset date is from week 43 (21 to 27 October). As no new human cases with disease onset in the previous four weeks have been reported, this is the final weekly update for the 2019 transmission season.

Since the beginning of the 2019 transmission season and as of 28 November 2019, EU Member States and EU neighbouring countries have reported 463 human infections. EU Member States reported 410 cases: Greece (223), Romania (66), Italy (53), Hungary (36), Cyprus (16), Bulgaria (5), Austria (4), Germany (4), France (2), and Slovakia (1). EU neighbouring countries reported 53 human cases in Serbia (27), Israel (10), Turkey (10) and North Macedonia (6).

To date, 50 deaths due to West Nile virus infection have been reported by Greece (34), Romania (8), Italy (4), Cyprus (1), Bulgaria (1), North Macedonia (1) and Serbia (1).

During the current transmission season, 89 outbreaks among equids have been reported by Germany (30), Greece (21), France (13), Italy (8), Hungary (7), Spain (5), Austria (4) and Portugal (1). In addition, 54 outbreaks among birds have been reported to ADNS by Germany (53) and Greece (1).