ECDC - Risk assessments

From 1 January–24 October 2023, 335 laboratory-confirmed Salmonella Enteritidis ST11 cases belonging to three distinct microbiological clusters have been reported in 14 EU/EEA countries, the United Kingdom and the United States, affecting all age groups.

Since June 2017, a cross-border outbreak of Salmonella Virchow ST16 has been ongoing in five EU/EEA countries, the UK, and the US. A total of 210 cases have been reported. No deaths have been reported. A majority of cases have been linked to local restaurants serving kebab meat.

The epidemiological situation of SARS-CoV-2 in humans and animals is continually evolving. To date, animal species known to transmit SARS-CoV-2 are American mink, raccoon dog, cat, ferret, hamster, house mouse, Egyptian fruit bat, deer mouse and white-tailed deer. Among farmed animals, American mink have the highest likelihood to become infected from humans or animals and further transmit SARS-CoV-2.

An increased reporting of shigellosis cases, mainly caused by Shigella sonnei, among travellers returning from Cabo Verde has been ongoing in the European Union/European Economic Area (EU/EEA), the United Kingdom (UK), and the United States (US) since September 2022. This outbreak evolved rapidly during November and December 2022.

According to the current ECDC assessment, there is moderate probability of XBB.1.5 becoming dominant in the EU/EEA and causing a substantial increase in the number of COVID-19 cases within the next one to two months.

In recent weeks, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) circulation in the EU/EEA has intensified, with increasing transmission rates in all population groups and an earlier-than-usual start of the season. Several EU/EEA countries are experiencing high RSV circulation and the number of severe acute respiratory infections (SARI) due to RSV is increasing. At this time of the year RSV infections are not unusual, however this year there is more RSV activity and it began earlier than in pre-COVID-19 seasons.

A cross-border outbreak of Salmonella Mbandaka ST413 has been ongoing in the EU/EEA, Israel, and the UK since September 2021.

Since the beginning of the outbreak declared on 20 September 2022 and as of 5 November 2022, Uganda has experienced 132 confirmed cases of Ebola disease (EBOD) caused by Sudan virus (SUDV), including 53 deaths and 61 recoveries across eight districts.

Since early May, and as of 11 October 2022, 20 455 confirmed cases of monkeypox (MPX) have been reported from 29 European Union/European Economic Area (EU/EEA) countries, including four deaths. As of 30 September, MPX confirmed cases reported from EU/EEA countries represented almost one third (29.7%) of the cases reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) globally (68 267 cases).

As of 26 September 2022, 92 cases of diphtheria among migrants have been reported by seven European countries for the year 2022.