The recurrent campylobacteriosis epidemic over Christmas and New Year in European countries, 2006–2014

Abstract

ObjectiveCampylobacteriosis is the most frequently reported foodborne disease in Europe with a notification rate of 71 per 100,000 population in the European Union in 2014. Surveillance data show a clear seasonality whereby case numbers peak during summer months in entire Europe and at the turn of the year, especially in Germany and Switzerland. A detailed description of European surveillance data by country at the turn of the year was missing so far. The objectives of the presented work were to describe national surveillance data of The European Surveillance System for 14 countries during winter times and to generate hypotheses for the observed seasonality of campylobacteriosis cases.ResultsThe analysis included 317,986 cases notified between calendar weeks 45 and 8 of winter seasons 2006/2007–2013/2014. Winter peaks in weekly case notifications and notification rates were observed for Austria, Belgium, Finland, Germany, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Switzerland and Sweden while for Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, Norway and the United Kingdom no unusual increase was observed. Generally, weekly notification rates peaked in calendar week 1 or 2 after a strong decline in the last week of December and reached values of a multiple of the observed notification rates in the weeks before or after the peak e.g. up to 6.5 notifications per 100,000 population per week in Luxembourg. Disease onset of cases notified during winter peaks occurred predominantly in calendar weeks 52 and 1 and point towards risk exposures around Christmas and New Year. The consumption of meat fondue or table top grilling poses such a risk and is popular in many countries with an observed winter peak. Additionally, increased travel activities over the festive season could foster campylobacteriosis transmission. Surveillance artefacts (e.g. reporting delays due to public holidays) should be excluded as causes for country-specific winter peaks before investigating risk exposures.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13104-017-2587-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

The European Union One Health 2018 Zoonoses Report

“…According to a recent meta-analysis, based on studies published between 1900 and 2015, E. multilocularis has been documented in red foxes from 21 countries (Oksanen et al, 2016; Figure 48). Since 2015, this parasite has been also found in foxes and golden jackals from Croatia (Beck et al, 2018;Sindi ci c et al, 2018).…”

“…The current surveillance system of Toxoplasma in animals of EU is strongly affected by several important limitations: (i) small amount of tested animals; (ii) the use of different indirect and direct detection methods, which, in most cases have been not validated by an independent body; (iii) unknown age of tested animals; and (iv) no information on type of breeding. Furthermore, there is no relationship between the presence of anti-Toxoplasma antibodies and infecting parasites in cattle and horses (Aroussi et al, 2015;Opsteegh et al, 2016). For pigs, poultry and small ruminants, serological methods could be useful for the detection of high risk animals/herds but not as an indicator of infection in individual animals, since the concordance between direct and indirect methods was estimated as low to moderate.…”

Epidemiologic characteristics and clinical course of children with acute gastroenteritis hospitalized in the Department of Pediatric Infectious Diseases and Hepatology at John Paul II Hospital in Krakow

“…Campylobacter is the most commonly reported AGE bacterial pathogen in the EU and worldwide (10,11,12). In Poland the number of reported confirmed cases of campylobacteriosis has increased over the last years (13,14).…”

“…Wśród czynników bakteryjnych wywołujących AGE zarówno w krajach UE, jak i na całym świecie najczęstsze są zakażenia wywołane pałeczkami Campylobacter (10,11,12). W Polsce w ostatnich latach liczba rejestrowanych zachorowań na kampylobakteriozę wykazuje stale trend wzrostowy (13,14).…”

“…W Polsce w ostatnich latach liczba rejestrowanych zachorowań na kampylobakteriozę wykazuje stale trend wzrostowy (13,14). Pomimo tego, 100,000 population in 2014) (10,12,14). According to the National Institute of Public Health-National Institute of Hygiene, Salmonella is the most common bacterial cause of AGE in Poland (787 cases of campylobacteriosis vs 9 701 cases of salmonellosis in 2016) (14).…”