High levels of community transmission and the co-circulation of respiratory viruses, such as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), influenza, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and others can increase pressure on healthcare systems.

ECDC recommends that healthcare facilities maintain and strengthen infection prevention and control (IPC) measures, due to the high community transmission and co-circulation of respiratory viruses such as SARS-CoV-2, influenza, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and others. The implementation should be based on an approach that considers all these viruses.

This issue of the Communicable Disease Threats Report (CDTR) covers the period 30 January – 5 February 2023 and includes updates on COVID-19, diphtheriae, mpox, influenza, influenza A (H9N2), influenza (H5N6), MERS-CoV, avian influenza, BSE, and Niaph virus.

This core protocol for ECDC studies of vaccine effectiveness against hospitalisation with Severe Acute Respiratory Infection laboratory-confirmed with SARS-CoV-2 or with influenza, version 2.0, represents an update to the main elements for a multi-country hospital-based study of COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness in patients hospitalised with Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI), already published as version 1.0.

This protocol presents a common methodology to estimate vaccine effectiveness (VE) for COVID-19, using established health data registries in participating EU/EEA Member States.

This issue of the Communicable Disease Threats Report (CDTR) covers the period 23-29 January 2023 and includes updates on COVID-19, diphtheriae, influenza, chikungunya, dengue and poliomyelitis.

This issue of the Communicable Disease Threats Report (CDTR) covers the period 15-21 January 2023 and includes updates on COVID-19, diphtheriae, influenza, Mpox and Cholera.

This issue of the CDTR covers the period 9-13 January 2023 and includes updates on COVID-19, Ebola, diphtheriae, influenza, measles and MERS-CoV.

In a Threat Assessment Brief released today, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) assesses the overall level of risk to the EU/EEA associated with the spread of the Omicron XBB.1.5 SARS-CoV-2 sub-lineage as low for the general population.

According to the current ECDC assessment, there is moderate probability of XBB.1.5 becoming dominant in the EU/EEA and causing a substantial increase in the number of COVID-19 cases within the next one to two months.