Weekly releases (1997–2007) - Volume 7, Issue 15, 10 April 2003

The Committee of the European Union Network for the Surveillance and Control of Communicable Diseases met on 9 and 10 April 2003 and agreed the following actions for European Union (EU) member states and the European Commission for the surveillance and control of SARS in Europe. These actions are based on the present situation and current knowledge, and are liable to change. The statement does not preclude the possibility that member states may take additional measures.

Several articles on the identification of a novel coronavirus thought to have a role in causing severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) have been given early online publication this week (1-5), and the World Health Organization (WHO) has published an interim report from the WHO team of experts currently investigating the outbreak in China (7).

The situation of the international outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) was summarized by the International Department at the Institut de veille sanitaire in France as of 1900 hours Central European time, 8 April 2003, as follows. Data were compiled from the following sources: Government of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) Department of Health (http://www.info.gov.hk/dh/), Singapore Ministry of Health (http://app.moh.gov.sg/), Health Canada (http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/), the World Health Organization (WHO, http://www.who.int), Center for Disease Control Taiwan, (http://www.cdc.gov.tw), Robert Koch-Institut, Germany (http://www.rki.de) , and other national public health institutes.

The Eurosurveillance editorial team has added a special page to the website which lists guidance and resources on Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) from government ministries of health and other designated authorities, in the European Union and elsewhere.

Fourteen cases of acute myopericarditis and one fatal case of acute myocardial infarction among approximately 350 000 primary smallpox vaccinees have been reported in the military vaccination programme in the United States. Four cases of myopericarditis and 6 acute ischaemic episodes, including 2 deaths following acute myocardial infarction, have also been reported from the civilian smallpox vaccination programme (among 29 600 vaccinees) (1, 2).

The ESSTI (European Surveillance of Sexually Transmitted Infections) network, funded since December 2001 by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Health and Consumer Protection (DG SANCO, http://europa.eu.int/comm/dgs/health_consumer/index_en.htm), held its first collaborative group meeting at the Health Protection Agency Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre (CDSC) in the United Kingdom, on 18-19 March 2003. The meeting was preceded by a one day European conference on syphilis outbreaks (advances in surveillance, diagnosis and management), also at CDSC, at which several European collaborators gave presentations on recent national syphilis outbreaks.