West Nile virus infection - Annual Epidemiological Report for 2018

Surveillance report
16 Dec 2019
Publication series: Annual Epidemiological Report on Communicable Diseases in Europe
Time period covered: 1 January 2018 - 31 December 2018
Cite:

European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. West Nile virus infection. In: ECDC. Annual epidemiological report for 2018. Stockholm: ECDC; 2019.

This report is based on data for 2018 retrieved from The European Surveillance System (TESSy) on 10 September 2019.

Executive summary

  • For 2018, eleven EU/EEA Member States reported 1 605 West Nile virus (WNV) infections, of which 1 548 (96%) were locally acquired.
  • The majority of locally acquired cases were reported by Italy, Greece and Romania, representing 39%, 20% and 18% of EU cases respectively.
  • The EU notification rate for locally acquired cases was 0.4 cases per 100 000 population, eight times higher than the rate in 2017.
  • For 2018, 166 deaths among locally acquired West Nile virus infections were reported, with Greece (n=51), Italy (n=49) and Romania (n=43) accounting for 86% (n=143) of them.  
  • In 2018, the first case was reported at the end of May and the last case was reported in December. 

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