Today ECDC issued scientific advice stressing the importance of further strengthening influenza vaccination of people in risk groups and healthcare workers to ensure a high level of protection.

The December issue of ECDC’s Executive Science Update is now online. It features articles on the outbreak of Q-fever in the Netherlands this year and a review of latest developments on variant-CJD.

ECDC today hosts a scientific seminar with Professor Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Professor Luc Montagnier, joint winners of this years’ Nobel Prize in Medicine for their role in discovering the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

On World AIDS Day (1 December) Zsuzsanna Jakab, Director of ECDC, will speak at the launch in Stockholm of the AIDS Accountability Country Score Card and WHO Europe and ECDC will publish a Joint Surveillance Report on HIV/AIDS in Europe.

The HIV epidemic remains a major public health issue in Europe, with evidence of increasing transmission of HIV in several countries. Case reporting data from 2007 shows that the number of newly reported cases in Europe continues to rise. Between 2000 and 2007, the annual rate of HIV infection has almost doubled, from 39 to 75 per million population.