Eurosurveillance - Volume 16, Issue 44, 03 November 2011

We report a Shigella sonnei outbreak of 46 cases that occurred in Norway during October 2011. Two municipalities were involved. A large cluster (42 cases) was concentrated in north Norway, while a small cluster (4 cases) occurred in the south-east region. Epidemiological evidence and traceback investigations have linked the outbreak to the consumption of imported fresh basil. The product has been withdrawn from the market. No further cases have been reported since 25 October.

Tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) is not endemic in the Netherlands and diagnostics are seldom requested. Here, we report about the rare event of TBE in two Dutch travellers returning from Austria in July and August 2011. This report serves to create awareness among physicians to consider travel-related TBE in their differential diagnosis of patients with neurological disease returning from TBE virus endemic regions and to promote awareness among professionals advising travellers.

The prevalence of herpes simplex virus (HSV) type-specific IgG was determined in sera taken in 1999 to 2006 from 1,100 children aged 0-18 years, 800 blood donors and 200 pregnant women in Thuringia, Germany, using tests based on the HSV glycoproteins (g) gG. By the age of 10-12 years, HSV-1 IgG prevalence reached 57.3%, rising to 69.3% by the age of 16-18 years and to 78.0% by the age of 28-30 years. Between 2.7% and 4.7% of the children aged up to 15 years had HSV-2 antibodies, increasing to 7.3% at the age of 16-18 years and to 13.6% among adults. The prevalence of HSV-1 antibodies among girls was significantly lower than among boys and a significantly higher prevalence of HSV-2 IgG in women than in men was detected. The reduced incidence of HSV-1 infections during childhood, especially in girls, has to be followed up since a higher number of primary HSV-2 infections may result. Between 2.7% and 4.7% of all children tested seemed to acquire HSV-2 by intrauterine or neonatal infection. We also compared the use of gG-1 with gC-1: the agreement of 97.2% between the two ELISAs suggests that gG-1 and gC-1 can be considered equivalent antigenic targets. .

In this manuscript, we summarise the experience of Greece during the post-pandemic influenza season 2010/11 from 04 October 2010 to 22 May 2011. The spread of the disease and its impact were monitored using multiple surveillance systems, such as sentinel surveillance, virological surveillance and all-cause mortality surveillance. We also focus on the characteristics of laboratory-confirmed severe influenza cases who required admission to an intensive care unit (ICU) (n=368), and/or with a fatal outcome (n=180). The influenza-like illness rate reported from sentinel surveillance started rising in early January 2011 and peaked between 31 January and 6 February 2011. The total number of ICU admissions was higher in the post-pandemic influenza season than during the pandemic period causing a lot of pressure on ICUs. The overall population mortality rate due to influenza A(H1N1)2009 was higher than during the pandemic period (15.9 vs 13.2 fatal cases per million, p=0.087). Our data suggest that the severity of clinical illness in the first post-pandemic influenza season was comparable or even higher than during the pandemic.