2010 News Archive
Polio outbreak in the south-west of Tajikistan
A polio outbreak in the south-west of Tajikistan, in the area bordering Afghanistan and Uzbekistan.
As of 22 April, 128 AFP cases have been reported and 10 children have died. All cases are in the south-west of the country, in an area bordering Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. Poliovirus has been isolated in diagnostic specimens from seven of these cases. Genetic sequencing of the virus is being done to further characterize the virus. Uzbekistan has also reported three AFP cases, which are under investigation.
Poliovirus travels long distances easily and polio-free regions will continue to be at risk until poliovirus transmission is stopped in the remaining endemic countries. The WHO European Region was certified polio-free in 2002, following over three years without transmission of indigenous wild poliovirus in the presence of certification-standard surveillance. The outbreak in Tajikistan has no immediate implications for the European Region’s certification.
This outbreak, however, demonstrates the need to maintain high population immunity until transmission of polio has been interrupted worldwide. The outbreak coincides with the annual European Immunization Week campaign which begins on 24 April 2010 to raise awareness of vaccine-preventable diseases and the importance of immunization.
Please click here to access the WHO press release http://www.euro.who.int/communicablediseases/outbreaks/20100423_1
World TB Day 2010
World Tuberculosis (TB) Day is held on March 24th each year and provides an opportunity to raise awareness about the international health threat presented by TB. It is a day to recognise the collaborative efforts of all countries involved in fighting TB.
March 24th commemorates the day in 1882 when Dr Robert Koch announced that he had discovered the cause of tuberculosis, the TB bacillus. Koch's discovery opened the way toward diagnosing and curing TB. TB can be cured, controlled, and with diligent efforts and sufficient resources, eventually eliminated.
“On the Move against Tuberculosis, Innovate to Accelerate Action” is the theme for World TB Day 2010. This theme underlines the worldwide plan to Stop TB (Global Plan to Stop TB-2006-2015 at http://www.stoptb.org/global/plan/) by promoting better efforts and innovative ways in order to achieve the 2006-2015 targets. The year 2010 marks the halfway point for the Global Plan. It is clearer than ever that all countries must scale up efforts and continue to seek new and innovative ways to stop TB if we are to achieve the targets outlined in the plan as follows:
1. By 2015: To reduce the prevalence of and death due to TB by 50% relative to 1990
2. By 2050: The global incidence of active TB will be less than 1 case per million
population (i.e. elimination of TB as a global public health problem)
Such innovations include finding new and better tools to fight tuberculosis e.g. drugs for treatment, vaccines and diagnostics and new innovative approaches for reaching people with TB care.
Though considerable achievements have been made, evidence shows that we need to speed up our efforts to achieve better results. The theme of innovation calls for a different way of thinking, as well as learning from the experiences of successful TB campaigns around the world.
TB –The Facts
TB remains a leading cause of death worldwide. In 2008, 1.8 million people died from TB including 500,000 people who were also co-infected with HIV. There were 9.4 million new cases of TB globally in 2008 including 1.4 million cases among people living with HIV. It is a disease closely related to poverty and more than 80% of the infected cases live in developing countries. The vast majority of TB deaths are in developing countries and more than half of all deaths occur in Asia. Multidrug-resistant TB remains a threat and extensively drug-resistant TB has become an emerging threat.
Across the WHO European Region, over 450,000 TB cases were reported in 2008, representing approximately 6% of TB cases reported to WHO worldwide. After an increase in overall TB notification rates between 2004 and 2007, the WHO European Region has reported a decrease of 2.6% since 2007. The age group with the highest number (42.0%) of newly detected TB cases in the Region is the 25–44 year olds.
In 2007, (the latest validated figures) there were 480 cases of TB reported in Ireland, a notification rate of 11.3 cases per 100,000 population. This is a slight increase in TB cases notified compared to 2006 when 465 cases were notified and the notification rate was 11.0 per 100,000. In 2008, 470 cases of TB have been provisionally reported giving a notification rate of 11.1 per 100,000. Full details are available here in the Annual TB Report 2007 (including provisional 2008 TB data).
In 2007, the notification rate for TB in the indigenous population was 8.0 per 100,000 while the rate in foreign-born persons was 31.3 per 100,000. The number of TB cases reported in Ireland has declined since the 1990s with 612 cases reported in 1991, a rate of 18.2 per 100,000. The decline has been even more considerable since the early 1950s when 7,000 cases of TB were notified annually.
More information on TB is available at:
HPSC website
http://www.hpsc.ie/hpsc/A-Z/VaccinePreventable/TuberculosisTB/
Joint ECDC/WHO report on tuberculosis surveillance in Europe in 2008
ECDC Website
http://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/Pages/home.aspx
http://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/press/events/spotlight_tuberculosis/Pages/spotlight_tuberculosis.aspx
WHO Euro website
Stop TB Partnership World TB Day 2010
http://www.stoptb.org/events/world_tb_day/
WHO Global TB Report 2009
http://www.who.int/tb/publications/global_report/en/
WHO TB website
http://www.who.int/tb/en/index.html
The Global Plan to Stop TB 2006-2015
http://www.who.int/tb/about/en/index.html
CDC website for World TB Day, 2010
http://www.cdc.gov/Features/WorldTBDay/
Health Protection Agency UK
http://www.hpa.org.uk/HPA/Topics/InfectiousDiseases/InfectionsAZ/1191942150134/
Epidemiology of Clostridium difficile in Ireland: May 2008 - Dec 2009
There were 3538 notifications of C. difficile associated disease (CDAD) from May 2008, when it first became notifiable, and December 2009 giving a national crude incidence rate (CIR) of 56.9 cases per 100,000 population in 2008 and 45.1 cases per 100,000 population in 2009. For further information view the March edition of Epi-Insight.
Indigenous salmonellosis low in Ireland
In 2008, there were 449 cases of salmonellosis notified, equating to a national crude incidence rate (CIR) of 10.6/100,000.
For the last eight years, the incidence of salmonellosis in Ireland has remained reasonably steady with around 350-450 cases reported per annum. This is a decrease from the number of cases that were reported in the late 1990s, when the number of cases peaked at 1257 cases in 1998. For further information view the March edition of Epi-Insight.
Applicants sought for ECDC training programme
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) is seeking applicants for its European Programme for Intervention Epidemiology Training (EPIET) programme, which starts on 16th September 2010.
This two year fellowship training programme provides training and practical experience in intervention epidemiology. The programme is aimed at EU and EEA/EFTA medical practitioners, public health nurses, microbiologists, veterinarians and other health professionals with previous experience in public health and a keen interest in epidemiology. Fellows are recruited for a two year period.
Full details are available here.
BonSoy Soy milk recall
BonSoy Soy milk recall: Information for medical Practitioners and Information for the Public may be found here