The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on excess mortality from all causes in 2020 varied across and within European countries. Using data for 2015–2019, we applied Bayesian spatio-temporal models to quantify the expected weekly deaths at the regional level had the pandemic not occurred in England, Greece, Italy, Spain, and Switzerland. With around 30%, Madrid, Castile-La Mancha, Castile-Leon (Spain) and Lombardia (Italy) were the regions with the highest excess mortality. In England, Greece and Switzerland, the regions most affected were Outer London and the West Midlands (England), Eastern, Western and Central Macedonia (Greece), and Ticino (Switzerland), with 15–20% excess mortality in 2020. Our study highlights the importance of the large transportation hubs for establishing community transmission in the first stages of the pandemic. Here, we show that acting promptly to limit transmission around these hubs is essential to prevent spread to other regions and countries.

Since December 2014 and up to February 2015, the weekly number of excess deaths from all-causes among individuals?≥?65 years of age in 14 European countries have been significantly higher than in the four previous winter seasons. The rise in unspecified excess mortality coincides with increased proportion of influenza detection in the European influenza surveillance schemes with a main predominance of influenza A(H3N2) viruses seen throughout Europe in the current season, though cold snaps and other respiratory infections may also have had an effect.

The EuroCigua project main objective is to characterize the risk of Ciguatera Poisoning (CP) in Europe including several specific objectives: to determine the incidence of ciguatera in Europe and the epidemiological characteristics of cases; to assess the presence of ciguatoxin in food and the environment in Europe and to develop and validate methods for the detection, quantification and confirmation of the presence of ciguatoxin contaminated specimens.This report compiles the activities carried out during the EuroCigua project from the signing in April 2016 until December 2020. The present document corresponds to Deliverable No. 6: "Final Scientific Report" on Risk characterization of ciguatera food poisoning in Europe of the Specific Agreement no. 1 "MANAGEMENT AND SCIENTIFIC COORDINATION" within the Framework Partnership Agreement GP/EFSA/AFSCO/2015/03 "Risk characterization of ciguatera food poisoning in Europe".