Weekly releases (1997–2007) - Volume 5, Issue 49, 05 December 2001

The second meeting of the Global Outbreak and Response Network (GOARN) was held on 29-30 November 2001 in Geneva, Switzerland. More than 120 attendants represented 82 institutions and governments. The network was formed in April 2000 by the Department of Communicable Disease Surveillance and Response of the World Health Organization (WHOCSR) (http://www.who.int/emc/pdfs/csr%20strategyE.pdf) and partners as an international collaboration of technical associates in the area of epidemic alert and response, including relevant public sector, intergovernmental, and non-governmental organisations, and the private sector (http://www.who.int/emc/pdfs/network.pdf).

The European Commission held a seminar in Brussels entitled “Pandemic planning in the Community: Influenza and other health threats” on 27 November 2001. A total of 113 participants from 29 European countries attended, representing national governments, influenza surveillance networks, the European Commission, World Health Organization (WHO), and industry. The European Commission’s press release about the meeting can be viewed at http://europa.eu.int/comm/health/index_en.html.

The level of influenza-like illness and acute respiratory infection morbidity remains below the threshold levels throughout Europe and the influenza viruses A and B isolated/detected until now resemble the strains in the vaccine for this season. Fourteen national and subnational networks reported no influenza activity to the European Influenza Surveillance Scheme (EISS, http://www.eiss.org) in the week ending 25 November (week 47) (1). Only in France and Slovenia was sporadic activity observed.

A coordinated withdrawal of the VAQTA hepatitis A vaccines manufactured by Aventis Pasteur took place throughout member states of the European Union (EU) last week [[see correction]]. The withdrawal applies to both adult and paediatric preparations (launched in 1997 and 1998, respectively) and to all batches of vaccine currently within their expiry date. Previous batches that have now expired (including those marketed under their generic name, “Hepatitis A vaccine, purified, inactivated, for adults”) may also have been affected.

Although tuberculosis (TB) did not constitute a major public health threat in Germany in 2000, Germany is not a low incidence countries, and enhanced measures to prevent TB are required, according to an article published in Germany’s national surveillance bulletin (1). The number of notified cases of active TB in Germany fell for the fourth consecutive year, to 9064 in 2000 (1999: 9974; 1998: 10 440; 1997: 11 163), corresponding to an incidence of 11.0 cases per 100 000 population (1999: 12.2/100 000) (2).

To coincide with World AIDS Day 2001 (1 December) two new reports presenting latest HIV and STI data in the United Kingdom (UK) have been published, as mentioned in the Communicable Disease Report last week (1,2). HIV and AIDS in the UK – an epidemiological review: 2000 (<www.phls.org.uk/facts/HIV/HIVreport.pdf>) describes the HIV epidemic in the UK from its beginnings through to the end of 2000. By that time over 44 000 cases of HIV infection had been reported as diagnosed in the UK, and the number of people reported as seen for HIV related care during 2000 was over 23 000.