In contrast to air travel, there are no recommendations on tracing ground transport passengers exposed to infectious pathogens. We analysed European statistics on passenger transport in different conveyances and conducted ...

Robust disease burden estimates are important for decision-making concerning introduction of new vaccines. Dengue is a major public health problem in the tropics but robust disease burden estimates are lacking. We conducted ...

From December 2008 to June 2009 a measles outbreak occurred in the Federal State of Hamburg, Germany. The outbreak affected 216 persons and was caused by a new measles strain termed D4-Hamburg which led to consecutive ...

This report provides an updated overview of recommended and mandatory vaccinations in the European Union (EU), Iceland and Norway, considering the differences in vaccine programme implementation between countries. In 2010, ...

Molecular-based diagnostic assays are the gold standard for infectious diseases today, since they allow a rapid and sensitive identification and typing of various pathogens. While PCR can be designed to be specific for a ...

Background and objective: In the European Region, measles elimination is now targeted to 2015. To measure progress towards elimination age-group specific susceptibility targets have been defined. Age-specific measles ...

Although most autoimmune diseases are connected to major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class II alleles, a small number of these disorders exhibit a variable degree of association with selected MHC class I genes, like ...

In recent years novel human respiratory disease agents have been described in South East Asia and Australia. The causative pathogens were classified as pteropine orthoreoviruses with strong phylogenetic relationship to ...

The development of disinfectants with broad-range efficacy against bacteria, viruses, fungi, protozoa and prions constitutes an ongoing challenge. Prions, the causative agents of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies ...

Human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs) have been shown to be important in physiological and pathophysiological processes in humans. Several HERVs have been found to be expressed in the placenta—a tissue with special ...