Regional health authorities have warned that many countries in Europe will miss a target to combat HIV, TB, hepatitis, and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) unless there’s significant investment in public health. STIs, in particular, have shot to record levels, they noted.
According to a recently released report from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), these diseases cause nearly 57 000 deaths annually in the European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.
However, many countries are way off target to meet official goals to eliminate infectious disease epidemics by 2030, and the region had not met most of these targets for 2025, reports EuroNews.
Some progress has been made. The number of new HIV infections has fallen by 35% since 2010, and TB incidence has decreased by 35% since 2015 – although the region’s goals were a respective 75% and 50% reduction by 2025.
And while deaths from Aids-related causes have fallen by 30% since 2010, with 3 300 deaths in 2023, health officials had wanted to halve that figure.
Deaths from hepatitis B and C remain high, and cases of acute hepatitis B are rising. The infections spread through sexual contact or when drug users share contaminated syringes, and can cause cirrhosis and liver cancer.
Meanwhile, rates of STIs like syphilis and gonorrhoea are reaching record levels.
Authorities now detect almost all new and relapsed TB cases, but drug resistance and treatment remain challenging. In 2022, just 68% of people who started TB treatment actually completed it, falling short of the region’s 90% target.
The ECDC called for additional efforts to prevent these diseases, for example improving uptake of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to help prevent HIV infection, increasing vaccinations for hepatitis B, and getting people to use condoms.
The agency also wants countries to expand testing services to try to detect infections earlier on, shore up data collection, and take steps to help people with diseases like TB to stay on their treatment.
“These diseases are preventable, as is the burden they place on health systems, patients, and their families,” said ECDC Director Pamela Rendi-Wagner. “We have five years to act; we must make them count.”
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
More than 1m new curable STIs reported worldwide every day
European warning on drug-resistant gonorrhoea and rise in infections
TB back as world’s deadliest infectious disease