Eurosurveillance - Volume 16, Issue 18, 05 May 2011

Tularaemia, though rare, has recently been increasingly reported in Germany. Most cases are indigenous infections. This report describes two epidemiologically independent infections with Francisella tularensis subspecies holarctica detected in Berlin in February 2011 that were acquired in central Anatolia, Turkey. In Turkey, there have been repeated tularaemia outbreaks since 2000 and the disease should therefore be considered as a differential diagnosis in travellers returning from that country.

A West Nile virus (WNV) lineage 2 strain was molecularly identified and characterised in a Eurasian magpie hunted in Greece in 2010, during a WNV outbreak in humans. Phylogenetic analysis revealed the highest sequence similarity (>99%) with other WNV lineage 2 strains derived from birds of prey in Austria and Hungary (2004-2009). This first molecular detection of WNV in sedentary wild birds in Greece, which are possible reservoirs of the virus, is a public health concern. .

At the Swedish Institute for Communicable Disease Control, statistical models based on queries submitted to a Swedish medical website are used as a complement to the regular influenza surveillance. The models have previously been shown to perform well for seasonal influenza. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the performance of the statistical models in the context of the influenza A(H1N1)2009 pandemic, a period when many factors, for example the media, could have influenced people's search behaviour on the Internet and consequently the performance of the models. Our evaluation indicates consistent good reliability for the statistical models also during the pandemic. When compared to Google Flu Trends for Sweden, they were at least equivalent in terms of estimating the influenza activity, and even seemed to be more precise in estimating the peak incidence of the influenza pandemic.

In 2004, the German public health institute, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), prioritised pathogens by public health criteria and presented the methodology and findings. In order to further improve the methodology, the RKI invited experts to give feedback on this via a structured web-based questionnaire. The survey was completed by 72 participants during 15 July 2008 to 15 January 2009. Prioritisation of pathogens was considered as useful for public health purposes by 68 participants and for both surveillance and epidemiological research by 64 participants. Additional pathogens were suggested, including some that are resistant to antimicrobials. The criteria incidence, severity, outbreak potential, emerging potential and preventability were each considered as useful or very useful for the prioritisation (by more than 65 participants for each criterion). Weighting of the criteria was judged as relevant or very relevant by 67 of participants, but needs more explanation. It was also suggested that the group carrying out the prioritisation be composed of a median of 15 experts (range: 5-1,000). The feedback obtained in the survey has been taken into account in the modification of the methodology for the next round of prioritisation, which started in December 2010. .