Eurosurveillance - Volume 13, Issue 39, 25 September 2008

On Thursday 18 September 2008, the hospital of Nantes in west France informed the District Health Office of a case of salmonellosis in an exclusively bottle-fed infant. On Monday morning 22 September, two additional cases of salmonellosis in infants were reported by the hospital of Niort in southwest France. The serotype of the three cases was unknown at that time.

On 25 August 2008, the National Institute of Research Development for Microbiology and Immunology (the 'Cantacuzino' Institute) in Bucharest, Romania reported the detection of IgM antibodies against West Nile virus in the serum of a male patient in his mid forties, from Braila town (Braila county, south eastern part of Romania). .

Six confirmed and five suspected cases of West Nile virus infection in horses have been reported in the vicinity of Ferrara in Italy. To verify the diffusion of viral circulation and to prevent the spread of disease, the regional authorities of Emilia-Romagna adopted a special plan of West Nile fever surveillance.

High levels of verotoxigenic Escherichia coli (VTEC) have been recorded to date in 2008 in the Republic of Ireland. One hundred and forty-eight VTEC cases were notified up to the end of August 2008 (Figure 1), compared to 70-90 confirmed cases reported in the equivalent time period in 2006 and 2007. Thirty three percent of cases notified in Ireland in 2008 indicated that their usual drinking water supply was a private well.

This article presents information on HIV and AIDS case reporting systems as part of a survey on HIV/AIDS surveillance practices in the World Health Organization (WHO) European Region. A standardised questionnaire was sent to the 53 national correspondents of the European Centre for the Epidemiological Monitoring of AIDS (EuroHIV). The HIV and AIDS case reporting section of the questionnaire comprised four parts: data collection system, HIV/AIDS case definition for surveillance, variables collected, and evaluation of surveillance systems). Individual-based data collection systems for HIV case reports have been implemented in 43 of 44 countries in the WHO European Region and for AIDS case reports in all the countries. For HIV case reports, a coded identifier is used in 28 countries, and full names are used in 11 countries. The European AIDS case definition has been adopted in 35 countries (80%). Information on molecular epidemiology is available in 30 countries, and HIV drug resistance is monitored in 11 countries. HIV/AIDS case reporting systems have been evaluated for under-reporting in 17 countries and for completeness in 11 countries. This article outlines the future needs for HIV/AIDS surveillance and presents recommendations on how to improve data comparability across European countries in the WHO region.

Earlier this year a Eurosurveillance news article reported on a joint statement issued by the United Nations Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization (WHO) regarding the importance of using condoms as a protection against HIV.