Eurosurveillance - Volume 16, Issue 10, 10 March 2011

An outbreak of measles is ongoing in Geneva, Switzerland, since January 2011, in the context of a measles epidemic in neighbouring Rhône-Alpes, France. A total of 41 confirmed cases have been reported, the majority among young adults, many unaware of their non-immune status. There is no large clustering of cases and 14 cases were imported or linked to imported cases. Catch-up vaccination, especially among young adults, may be necessary to prevent further extension of this outbreak.

We analysed by neutralisation assay 55 intravenous immunoglobulin preparations produced from human plasma collected in three central European countries, specifically Austria, Germany and the Czech Republic, from 2006 to 2010. The preparations from 2009 and 2010 contained increasing titres of neutralising antibodies against West Nile virus (WNV) in the absence of reported human WNV cases in these countries.

Following reports of West Nile neuroinvasive disease in the north-eastern area of Italy in 2009, all blood donations dating from the period between 1 August and 31 October 2009 in the Rovigo province of the Veneto region were routinely checked to exclude those with a positive nucleic acid test for West Nile virus (WNV). Only one of 5,726 blood donations was positive (17.5 per 100,000 donations; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.4-97.3). In addition, a selection of 2,507 blood donations collected during the period from 20 July to 15 November 2009 were screened by ELISA for IgG and IgM antibodies against WNV. A positive result was received for 94 of them. The positive sera were further evaluated using immunofluorescence and plaque reduction neutralisation test (PRNT), in which only 17 sera were confirmed positive. This corresponds to a prevalence of 6.8 per 1,000 sera (95% CI: 4.0-10.9). In a case-control study that matched each of the 17 PRNT-positive sera with four negative sera with the same date of donation and same donation centre, we did not find a significant association with age and sex of the donor; donors who worked mainly outdoors were significantly more at risk to have a positive PRNT for WNV.

We report the results of two nationwide surveillance studies of Clostridium difficile infection conducted during 2008 and 2009 in Sweden. The first study aimed to identify and quantify the proportion of C. difficile isolates with decreased susceptibility to moxifloxacin, particularly those of PCR-ribotype 027. From December 2007 to September 2008, 20 of 28 regional laboratories sent 585 isolates to the Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control for typing. A majority of the isolates (454 of 585; 78%) belonged to four PCR ribotypes (012, SE37, 017 and 046), all clustered in geographical regions. Only two type 027 isolates were found, both from the same patient. In the second study, involving all 28 regional laboratories, all consecutive C. difficile isolates collected during two time periods in 2009 (n=364) were typed and tested for susceptibility to clindamycin, erythromycin, moxifloxacin, metronidazole and vancomycin. The three most common PCR ribotypes were SE21, 001 and 020 (22% of all isolates). Types 012, 017, and 046 were geographically clustered and associated with decreased susceptibility to moxifloxacin, clindamycin and erythromcin. The extent of moxifloxacin prescription was highly variable among counties, indicating a need for careful monitoring of prescription rates to follow its role in C. difficile epidemiology.