This report is based on data retrieved from The European Surveillance System (TESSy) on 4 November 2016. TESSy is a system for the collection, analysis and dissemination of data on communicable diseases. EU Member States and EEA countries contribute to the system by uploading their infectious disease surveillance data at regular intervals.
Hepatitis C data are accessible from: http://atlas.ecdc.europa.eu/public/index.aspx?Instance=GeneralAtlas
Suggested citation. European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. Annual epidemiological report for 2015 – Hepatitis C [Internet]. Stockholm: ECDC; 2017. Available from: http://ecdc.europa.eu/en/publications/surveillance_reports/annual_epidemiological_report/Pages/epi_index.aspx
Key facts
• In 2015, 34 651 cases of hepatitis C were reported from 28 EU/EEA Member States, a crude rate of 8.6 per 100 000 population.
• Of the cases reported, 1.0% were classified as acute, 12.7% as chronic, 69.5% as ‘unknown’ and 16.8% were not classified.
• Hepatitis C is more commonly reported among men than women, with a male-to-female ratio of 1.9 to 1. Just over half (50.8%) of all hepatitis C cases reported in 2015 were aged between 25 and 44 years, and 6.9% of cases were under 25 years of age.
• Only 14.4% of the cases included data on the mode of transmission, and of these, the most commonly reported was injecting drug use, which accounted for 75.3% of those cases with complete information on transmission status.
• Between 2006 and 2015, the overall number of cases diagnosed and reported across all EU/EEA Member States increased by 26.1%. The rate fluctuated between 7.3 and 9.4 per 100 000 with a steady increase between 2010 and 2014.
• The interpretation of hepatitis C data across countries remains problematic, with ongoing differences in surveillance systems and difficulties in defining reported cases as acute or chronic. With hepatitis C, a largely asymptomatic disease until the late stages, surveillance based on notification data is challenging, with data reflecting testing practices rather than true occurrence of disease.
