Epidemiological summary

Since the beginning of 2024, and as of 26 June 2024, 1 country in Europe reported human cases of West Nile virus infection: Spain.

On the 27 June 2024, Italy in an official report confirmed the first human case of WNV infection of the 2024 season from the province of Modena. This weekly update and dashboard has information on places on infection, reported to TESSy, up to 26 June 2024. The data from Italy will be updated in the upcoming weekly update and dashboard.

Introduction

According to the Commission Directives 2004/33/EC and 2014/110/EU on blood safety, blood establishments in the EU/EEA, countries should apply temporary deferral criteria for donors of allogeneic blood donation for 28 days after leaving a risk area of locally acquired1 West Nile virus (WNV) unless an individual Nucleic Acid Test (NAT) is negative.

The WNV surveillance activities carried out by ECDC support the competent authorities responsible for blood safety in the implementation of these directives. Therefore, the Emerging and Vector-borne Diseases team at ECDC currently provides weekly and monthly updates with the latest reports on cases of WNV infections in Europe2. A map and table are updated every Friday from June to November which is the time of the year WNV infections are most likely to be reported. In addition, an interactive dashboard is made available. ECDC provides an enhanced analysis of the current WNV epidemiology on a monthly basis, which includes an assessment of the situation.

Here we present the weekly report as of 26 June 2024.

EU/EEA notification of West Nile virus infections

West Nile virus infection in humans is a notifiable disease at the EU level and cases should be reported by national public health authorities through the European Surveillance System (TESSy) according to the EU case definition.

Outbreaks of WNV infections in equids and birds should be notified to the Animal Disease Information System (ADIS) of the European Commission. At the EU/EEA level it is mandatory to report equine encephalomyelitis due to WNV infection and West Nile virus infections among birds in accordance with Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2018/1882. Data from passive and active surveillance activities including outbreaks are collected by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). Analyses of animal data are only included in the monthly update.

Overview of West Nile virus cases in EU/EEA and EU-neighbouring countries

Table 1.- Countries and regions with locally acquired human cases of WNV infections in 2024 till 26 June 2024.

Geographical distribution

Figure 1.- Distribution of locally acquired human West Nile fever infections in 2024 till 26 June 2024.

Download the data

Download the dataset for West Nile virus surveillance.

  1. Cases acquired within the reporting country.↩︎

  2. EU/EEA countries and EU-neighbouring countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo*, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Türkiye).

    *This designation is without prejudice to positions on status and is in line with UNSCR 1244/1999 and the ICJ Opinion on the Kosovo declaration of independence.

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