Lessons learnt in Europe on tuberculosis surveillance, outbreaks and BCG vaccination in 2011

Abstract

Only a few European scientific journals publish articles on respiratory infectious diseases and tuberculosis (TB). The European Respiratory Journal ( ERJ ) and Eurosurveillance are two examples with a different focus. Eurosurveillance , which is published by, but editorially independent from, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) is a European peer-reviewed scientific journal devoted to the epidemiology, surveillance, prevention and control of communicable diseases, with a focus on topics that are of relevance to Europe. To inform the readers of the ERJ about what was published on TB epidemiology, surveillance, prevention and control this editorial will provide a summary of articles published in Eurosurveillance and in other journals in 2011 on TB in Europe. We used Eurosurveillance as a model to get an overview of the TB areas covered by a European journal directed at public health. All articles published on TB in Eurosurveillance in 2011 were identified, and grouped into three categories: outbreak reports; surveillance reports; and BCG (bacille Calmette–Guerin) vaccination. We searched the bibliographic database MEDLINE for other studies from Europe on similar topics. The information provided in the articles was summarised in tables. The interpretation of the results and their relevance for TB control and elimination in Europe is discussed in the sections below. The articles published on TB outbreaks in Europe are summarised in table 1 [1–7]. View this table: Table 1– Tuberculosis (TB) outbreak reports in Europe published in 2011 Three papers published in Eurosurveillance described an outbreak of TB in a European country. A study from Rome, Italy showed that 118 (9%) neonates tested QuantiFERON-TB Gold In-Tube (QFT-GIT; Cellestis, Carnegie, Australia) positive after exposure to a sputum-culture positive nurse at a maternity ward [1]. Since there are no estimates of QFT-GIT sensitivity and specificity in newborns it is unknown what the risk of progression to active TB is for children with …