Weekly releases (1997–2007) - Volume 12, Issue 13, 29 March 2007

On Monday 15 January 2007, a municipality in Denmark received the first of several complaints from citizens who reported severe diarrhoea and vomiting over the weekend. Over the same period, the drinking water in many houses was reported to be discoloured and of unusual smell and taste.

Since November 2006, nine cases of tularaemia from three adjacent municipalities in northern Norway have been laboratory-confirmed. According to notification forms from clinicians, eight cases had cervical lymphadenopathy, with additional mention of oral or pharyngeal infection in five.

On 15 February 2007, the United Kingdom’s Respiratory and Systemic Infection Laboratory confirmed isolation of a toxigenic (toxin-producing) Corynebacterium ulcerans from a pharyngeal sample taken from a man in his mid-fifties in North Yorkshire, England. The man’s symptoms included a five-week history of pharyngitis, laryngitis, fever and abdominal pain.

Nine cases of mumps have been reported recently in a village in Heves County in northern Hungary. The illnesses occurred between 5 January and 24 February 2007, and were epidemiologically related and laboratory-confirmed.