News Archives |
Published on: 8 June 2007 |
Next update:15 June 2007
News Archives: | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001
ECDC publishes annual report on communicable diseases epidemiology in the European Union
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) has published its first Epidemiological Report on Communicable Diseases in the European Union (EU). The report contains epidemiological data on 49 communicable diseases (together with healthcare associated infections and antimicrobial resistant infections) collected from the 25 EU member states, Norway and Iceland for the year 2005. It includes a discussion on the main determinants of communicable diseases in the EU and their consequences, and suggests some of the main actions that are needed to deal with communicable diseases in the EU. The annual report on the communicable disease threats monitored in the EU also forms part of the document.
The overall incidence of a number of the communicable diseases is low in Europe with several diseases showing clear signs of steadily declining trends (eg measles) or of remaining relatively stable (eg invasive pneumococcal disease) over the past 10 years. Similarly the data show that the incidence of certain gastrointestinal infections (eg campylobacter) and certain STIs (eg HIV, Chlamydia) is increasing overall, highlighting the need to continue national prevention and control programmes. It is hoped that many of the conclusions in this first report will provide a basis for health policy makers at regional, national, and international levels to plan how best to tackle the problem of communicable diseases.
For this report, the ECDC made use of, and built on, the existing EU and European data sets to maximize the return on the investment already made by the Member States and EU Institutions. The Dedicated Surveillance Networks (DSN), including the former Basic Surveillance Network (BSN), the DG-SANCO/ Statistical Office of the European Communities (Eurostat) historical CD dataset and the 2005 Zoonoses dataset (collected for the European Food Safety Association) were used.
References
1. European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. European Communicable Disease Epidemiological Report, 2006. Stockholm: ECDC, 2007. Available at <http://www.ecdc.eu.int/pdf/Epi_report_2007.pdf>.