Eurosurveillance - Volume 13, Issue 26, 26 June 2008

As reported in a recent issue of Eurosurveillance, a mumps outbreak is ongoing in the Netherlands despite high vaccination coverage of 90-95% [1]. The reported mumps cases are restricted to geographic regions with a high percentage of residents who are members of a religious community that rejects vaccination. Consequently, two thirds of the mumps patients were not vaccinated. However, also vaccinated individuals in these regions were affected [1]. Since 1987, the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) combination vaccine produced by the Netherlands Vaccine Institute (NVI) is part of the Dutch national immunisation programme and administered at the ages of 14 months and nine years.

In 2006, a new variant of Chlamydia trachomatis (nvCT) was discovered in Sweden [1]. Due to a deletion in the target sequence for PCR amplification, nvCT has escaped detection by the nucleic acid amplification tests Abbott m2000 (Abbott Laboratories) and Cobas Amplicor/TaqMan48 (Roche Diagnostics) which together were used for 65% of all chlamydia tests in Sweden. The third test commonly used in Sweden, ProbeTec ET (Becton Dickinson [BD]), does detect the new variant because it uses a different DNA target sequence in the cryptic plasmid. The nvCT is spread all over Sweden and in early 2007, it accounted for between 20% and 65% of all chlamydia cases in Swedish counties where Abbott/Roche test systems were used [2]. In the four counties that used the BD system, the proportion of nvCT was only between 7% and 20% in the same time period. Ongoing studies are now following the spread of the nvCT in several counties.

This review presents an overview of the developments in the epidemiology of tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) during 2007 in Europe, the Far East and Asia, as well as some comments interpreting the various developments. The recent TBE situation in 29 European and four non-European countries is shown and discussed. The number of registered TBE cases from 1976 to 2007 in 19 European countries with endemic TBE is presented. Although criteria for TBE reporting vary from one country to another and it is necessary to account for unreported cases, an overall increase of TBE incidence during the last 30 years can clearly be established. Besides changes in climate and weather, a number of additional factors are probably responsible for this rise: increased exposition, partly due to socio-economical and political changes, and other factors that are for the most part unknown. In addition, the immunisation coverage in the population of some of the countries is discussed.

This article presents the steps and considerations that led to the development of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control's (ECDC) long-term strategy for the surveillance of communicable diseases in the European Union (EU) for the years 2008 to 2013 [1]. Furthermore, it outlines the key features of the strategy that was approved by the ECDC's Management Board in December 2007. .