tetano
Editor, Senior Moderator
Europe?s top epidemiologists say that they?ve vastly improved their monitoring of emerging disease threats, including obscure ones, such as anthrax and plague. They also acknowledged, however, that the H1N1 pandemic may have resulted in less attention paid to other threats last year.
This week the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control issued a report describing disease outbreaks and threats from 2009 ? both within Europe and with the potential to affect Europe -- and assessing its response to each.
During the peak of the H1N1 pandemic in Europe, between April and September 2009, the agency noted a dip in reporting of other threats, particularly the type of food and waterborne diseases that tend to increase in the summer. This suggested that the member states? attention to H1N1 may have resulted in under-monitoring and under-reporting of these threats to ECDC, according to Dr. Denis Coulombier, the head of the ECDC?s preparedness and response unit in Stockholm.
?It?s very clear that some of the other notifications that we should have received were not coming in,? Dr. Coulombier said in an interview. The dip seemed to be limited to the diarrheal illnesses and not the potentially graver threats on ECDC?s radar that year, such as the ongoing Q fever outbreak in the Netherlands, which saw more than 2,000 cases in 2009. ?My main concern was to miss something else because of the pandemic,? Dr. Coulombier said. ?Thankfully, I don?t think we missed much.?
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http://www.internalmedicinenews.com...focus-from-other-threats-ecdc/e9d1a20509.html
This week the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control issued a report describing disease outbreaks and threats from 2009 ? both within Europe and with the potential to affect Europe -- and assessing its response to each.
During the peak of the H1N1 pandemic in Europe, between April and September 2009, the agency noted a dip in reporting of other threats, particularly the type of food and waterborne diseases that tend to increase in the summer. This suggested that the member states? attention to H1N1 may have resulted in under-monitoring and under-reporting of these threats to ECDC, according to Dr. Denis Coulombier, the head of the ECDC?s preparedness and response unit in Stockholm.
?It?s very clear that some of the other notifications that we should have received were not coming in,? Dr. Coulombier said in an interview. The dip seemed to be limited to the diarrheal illnesses and not the potentially graver threats on ECDC?s radar that year, such as the ongoing Q fever outbreak in the Netherlands, which saw more than 2,000 cases in 2009. ?My main concern was to miss something else because of the pandemic,? Dr. Coulombier said. ?Thankfully, I don?t think we missed much.?
...
http://www.internalmedicinenews.com...focus-from-other-threats-ecdc/e9d1a20509.html