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RESPIRATORY VIRUSES SECTION SEASONAL NEWSLETTER! 2025 IN THIS SEASON’S GREETINGS! NEWSLETTER: As the year draws to a close and we approach the holiday season, we in the Season’s Greetings ECDC Respiratory Viruses team would like to extend our warmest greetings to you with this end-of-year newsletter. Key Activities 2025 In this newsletter you can find the team’s main achievements in 2025. Most of them saw your active contribution and involvement, and we therefore would like Publications 2025 to deeply thank you for all your crucial input which is indispensable to us, and to share a summary of these achievements with you. Routine Outputs Looking ahead to 2026, we are prepared to build on these strong foundations and continue to strengthen our synergies and collaboration. We are really Meetings 2025 looking forward to it. In the meantime, we take this opportunity to wish you all and your families a well—deserved period of rest and celebration Highlights 2026 Edoardo Colzani, on behalf of the ECDC Respiratory Viruses team www.ecdc.europa.eu  Key activities 2025 Respiratory Virus Surveillance guidance The aim of these EURLs is to support national reference laboratories to promote good practice regarding diagnostics, testing methods, use of certain As many of you will be aware, we have been working on an tests, notification and reporting of serious update of the surveillance guidance for integrated cross-border health threats. surveillance of respiratory viruses at the EU level. This year we started two working groups involving some of Over the past year ECDC has been working with the you and a further one to come in January 2026. Commission, including HaDEA, to establish the public health EURL for respiratory viruses (EURL-RV). The Two of the subgroups will have completed their meetings winning candidate is a consortium of 8 laboratories, this year: which will be coordinated by Erasmus Medical Action-oriented surveillance objectives – draft Center-Viroscience. The nominated consortium will objectives produced. prepare during 2026 for their anticipated start in early Right-sizing - meetings continued into early December, 2027, when the EURL will become operational. and work is ongoing at pace to develop draft An EDCC news item was just published with further recommendations for this. details. Transition to Epipulse Cases and change Zoonotic influenza in record types 2025 has been a dynamic year for avian influenza; the Three record types have already transitioned to EpiPulse detections of which has been increasing in wild birds in Cases in 2025 (RESPIQUAL, INFLZOO and Europe, and as a result spill-over events to domestic INFLZOOCONTACT). Thank you to all of you for attending poultry. Globally, infections in humans are being the training and testing the platform. sporadically reported. ECDC therefore continues its efforts in the surveillance of zoonotic influenza and to The transition to EpiPulse Cases for respiratory virus data support preparedness for potential human cases in will continue in 2026. We want to ensure that all data that EU/EEA, with the production of various scientific advice are collected have a purpose and contribute to fulfilling and guidance documents throughout the year, including the objectives, therefore we have started mapping the ‘ECDC/EFSA scientific opinion on Preparedness, surveillance indicators to the new surveillance objectives. prevention and control related to zoonotic avian This will be particularly important as we review all the influenza’; the ECDC’s ‘Scenarios for pre-pandemic zoonotic influenza preparedness and response in the metadata in preparation for the transition to EpiPulse EU/EEA’; and the ‘ECDC/EFSA Coordinated One Health Cases next year. The DNCC and wider network will be investigation and management of outbreaks in humans consulted on metadata changes. and animals caused by zoonotic avian influenza viruses’. There have also been regular updates in the quarterly Public health EURL for respiratory avian influenza overview reports and the ECDC Communicable disease threats report (CDTR) on human viruses cases of zoonotic influenza reported globally. As you may be aware, the European Commission has been Details of these, and all other, publications can be found introducing a network of European reference further below. laboratories (EURLs) for public health. www.ecdc.europa.eu  Key activities 2025 Experts from the Respiratory Virus team have also EuroMOMO attended various meetings, conferences and contributed to expert panels on the topic this year including ESCAIDE European mortality monitoring and the 27th annual meeting of the European Society for Clinical Virology (ESCV), where ECDC had panel and ECDC’s work with EuroMOMO continues; we are in the 3rd keynote presentations; the Annual meeting for EURL of year of the 4-year FWC with SSI. Following on from the avian influenza; a Disease X seminar on A(H5N1) EuroMOMO face-to-face network meeting in September organised by PandemiX Center of Excellence and SSI; 2024, the EuroMOMO Hub continues its work reviewing the underlying statistical methods and performance of the and a simulation exercise (SimEx) on ‘medical EuroMOMO model, resulting in lively discussions with the countermeasures readiness and response to a natural Network. Work is also ongoing to generalise the attributable cross-border threat to health’ organised by DG HERA mortality model (AttMOMO), originally developed to and held in November. There have also been regular estimate the contribution of influenza to excess mortality, to scientific seminars organised jointly with EFSA on avian be able to estimate the contribution of multiple pathogens influenza throughout the year that will continue in 2026, and control for temperature. The hub is planning a country to which the Network are invited. visit to recruit new countries to the network. If your country is interested in starting routine all-cause mortality monitoring, then please contact us! The European Respiratory Virus AURORAE Surveillance Summary (ERVISS) It was a busy and fruitful penultimate year for the AURORAE The ERVISS dashboard continues as the primary consortium; work continued across the three main output for near real-time surveillance, analysis respiratory viruses to support Member States. Activities and display of weekly surveillance data and have included laboratory support through the provision of trends in the EU/EEA. We have worked since whole-genome sequencing (WGS) protocols and training in summer to simplify the ECDC summary, making WGS for RSV, and the continuation of antigenic characterisation of both SARS-CoV-2 and influenza viruses. it shorter and focused on interpretation of the There have been several rounds of EQAs, including wetlab data, rather than presentation of individual EQAs on both SARS-CoV-2 and RSV; Bioinformatic EQAs indicators. We hope this is more useful to from 2023-2025, featuring several rounds covering readers, but we always welcome feedback from SARS-CoV-2 baseline assessment; zoonotic influenza; and the network about ways in which it could be seasonal influenza; and the results from the EQA improved. In the spirit of continual assessment programme on influenza virus from 2023 were improvement, we have been working on several published in October. new features, as part of the annual ERVISS In addition, as planned, a range of training activities were development cycle, and we plan to release these offered in support of the Member States, including in early 2026. face-to-face wet/dry lab trainings; twinning visits, webinars, and the provision of diagnostic and We thank all countries for their regular characterization support through the offer of protocols for reporting of data that makes the publication of influenza and SARS-CoV-2. There have also been a number ERVISS possible. of virtual trainings made available, for example in October there was an e-learning course on the essentials of SARS-CoV-2 sequencing and data analysis. In total, some 495 participants from the Member States took part in the 22 trainings provided by AURORAE across the year. www.ecdc.europa.eu  PUBLICATIONS 2025 JANUARY SEPTEMBER ROUTINE OUTPUTS Coordinated One Health Influenza virus characteristics, ECDC-EFSA Avian influenza investigation and management of week 40 2024 to week 33 2025, Overview Reports outbreaks in humans and animals EU/EEA September-December 2025 caused by zoonotic avian influenza June–September 2025 viruses NOVEMBER March - June 2025 December 2024-March 2025 Survey report on national ECDC/EFSA Scientific Opinion on seasonal influenza vaccination Preparedness, prevention and Annual Epidemiological Report recommendations and coverage control related to zoonotic avian Zoonotic Influenza Annual rates in EU/EEA countries, influenza Epidemiological Report (AER) for 2024/25 2023 Threat Assessment Brief (TAB): MARCH External Quality Assessments Assessing the risk of influenza for the EU/EEA in the context of MARCH – EQA of molecular detection and variant typing of Impact of SARS-CoV-2 variant increasing circulation of A(H3N2) SARS-CoV-2 in European expert mutations on susceptibility to subclade K laboratories in 2023 monoclonal antibodies and antiviral drugs: a non-systematic review, DECEMBER SEPTEMBER – External quality April 2022 to October 2024. assessment for molecular Scenarios for pre-pandemic detection, subtyping and Does COVID-19 vaccination reduce zoonotic influenza preparedness characterisation of potentially and response zoonotic type A influenza viruses, the risk and duration of post COVID-19 condition? 2024 Related documents: • Short instruction manual OCTOBER - ECDC/WHO Euro JULY • Downloadable Excel tool seasonal influenza EQA 2023 • Press release report Epidemiological and Clinical Insights into Enterovirus Circulation Preparedness of public health Communicable Disease Threat in Europe, 2018-2023: A Multicenter laboratories for respiratory Report (CDTR) Retrospective Surveillance Study infectious diseases Although the CDTRs cover all ECDC disease areas, there are regular updates contained therein on respiratory viruses, including the human cases of zoonotic influenza reported globally. www.ecdc.europa.eu  Respiratory Virus Annual Meeting The tenth WHO/Europe - ECDC Joint European Respiratory Virus Surveillance Meeting, was held in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina on 2–3 June 2025. Around 125 participants attended in-person, and many more online, from across the European region to discuss surveillance of seasonal and pandemic influenza, SARS-CoV-2, and RSV, with a focus on strengthening integrated respiratory virus surveillance and preparedness in the European Region. The meeting report will be shared with the Network as soon as possible. Disease Network Coordination Committee (DNCC) Meetings MEETINGS 2025 There were two dedicated DNCC meetings this year, the first in March (face-to-face) and a second (virtual) meeting in October. At the March meeting, the agenda focussed on: - Consultation on the scope and plan for updating the guidance on surveillance of respiratory viruses in the EU/EEA. - Information on ECDC’s ongoing and planned activities in 2025 on respiratory viruses. - Discussion of suggestions for relevant topics for the annual network meeting. At the October meeting, the focus was on providing information on: - The surveillance of respiratory viruses guidance development including proposed surveillance objectives. - Epipulse cases/metadata updates. - Mapping of severe respiratory disease indicators in the EU/EEA. - The finalised document on scenarios for pre-pandemic zoonotic influenza preparedness and response. Furthermore, the DNCC was informed about and consulted on: - A then- upcoming virology meeting (held in November) that would inform the surveillance guidance. - The new ERVISS summary. - The anticipated public health focus of the work of the Respiratory Virus (RV) Section in 2026 and 2027. Virology Face - to - Face Meeting In November, ECDC hosted virologists from across Europe to strengthen surveillance of respiratory viruses – including influenza, SARS-CoV-2 and RSV. The objective of the meeting was to consider the opportunities to (re)define virological information collected by ECDC during the revision of the respiratory virus surveillance guidance and the ongoing change from TESSy to EpiPulse Cases. Discussions during the meeting focussed on how virology can support public health actions including virological data being translated into evidence to support decision-making and help reduce the impact of respiratory infections across the region. www.ecdc.europa.eu  Over the course of 2025, ECDC has hosted 28 online webinars and seminars covering both surveillance and laboratory topics. Joint ECDC-WHO surveillance webinars REGULAR NETWORK WEBINARS 2025 ECDC together with WHO/EURO jointly organised five webinars focused on routine respiratory virus surveillance in 2025 to discuss the current epidemiological situation, vaccine effectiveness and other pressing surveillance topics. The webinars include the 2024/2025 mid and late-season webinar, a webinar on the use of thresholds in surveillance as well as the 2025/2026 start and mid-season webinar. We thank all countries that agreed to present at these webinars and actively participate in exchange across Europe. Zoonotic influenza surveillance webinars Due to the current global avian influenza epidemiological situation, ECDC organised four webinars to present and discuss published ECDC protocols, reports and changes to data collection for zoonotic influenza. Additional topics in the webinar included country experiences and ongoing work on Epipulse Cases and a working case definition. Scientific webinars on avian influenza Together with the European Food Safety Authority and the European Reference laboratory for avian influenza, ECDC continued to organise quarterly scientific webinars on avian influenza where the current epidemiological situation and genetic characteristics of avian influenza viruses in animals and humans are presented, bringing together both the animal and human health sectors. There were further seminars, one hosted by the Aurorae consortium on “avian influenza in human specimens – genomic analyses and experiences from the field", as well as another EU case definitions and data collection. Joint ECDC – WHO Laboratory network webinars During 2025, ECDC/WHO EURO held joint laboratory network meetings once a month (January - June / September - December). A number of topics were discussed including focus meetings on zoonotic / swine flu; SARS-Cov-2 including sequencing; seasonal influenza; and RSV. Other topics discussed were: severe adenovirus outbreaks; updates on GISAID; review of the influenza season ‘24/’25 including the virological analysis; updates on both dry and wetlab EQAs for influenza, SARS-Cov-2 and RSV; outcomes of the influenza vaccine composition meeting for season ‘25/’26; a global overview of the current influenza season; update on the respiratory virus EURL and feedback from the recent EU/EEA RV virology technical meeting on virus characterisation. The intention is to continue with these meetings, on the same monthly schedule, in 2026. We appreciate your participation and collaboration at these meetings. www.ecdc.europa.eu  Launch of Guidance for integrated surveillance: As presented above, work on the surveillance guidance is continuing apace. The drafting will be completed during the first half of 2026, with a view to publishing before the Annual Meeting in June. RSV guidance for adults: In late 2025 the Respiratory virus team began exploring the production of an ECDC guidance for RSV in older adults. The early activity aims to establish the high-level policy questions that will guide and shape the evidence gathering and subsequent analysis. For Q1, we intend to launch an open call to establish an Expert Panel that will work alongside the ECDC disease experts and other stakeholders. The bulk of the work will then be done throughout 2026, with a target publication date during the HIGHLIGHTS IN 2026 first half of 2027. In-depth analysis of surveillance data for Respiratory Viruses: At ECDC we are currently assessing the feasibility of multi-country studies using surveillance data in agreement and close collaboration with the Network. Respiratory Virus Annual Meeting: As per our usual programme, we plan to host the next ECDC Respiratory Virus Annual Meeting in May / June in 2026. Planning will start in earnest early in 2026, with the practical arrangements so that you can be informed of the dates and location as soon as possible, followed closely by the development of the agenda. Disease Network Coordination Committee (DNCC): Our current intention just now is to have 3 DNCC meetings in 2026. Two virtual meetings; one in February and another in the autumn. We aim to have at least one face-to-face meeting with the DNCC each year and for next year, we hope to organise back-to-back with the Annual meeting in May / June. Epipulse cases: As mentioned above, work on the implementation of Epipulse cases will continue in 2026. End of EuroMOMO Framework Contract (FWC): The current FWC will expire on 08 November 2026. End of Aurorae Framework Contract (FWC): The FWC will expire on 21 June 2026. The continuation of some activities is expected for a period of up to 6 months after the contract end date (in line with contractual terms and conditions). From 2027, the newly designated EURL will take over some of the activities covered by Aurorae. During 2026, we expect that the following activities of Aurorae will take place: one round of wet and dry lab EQAs for influenza, SARS-CoV-2 and RSV, and an expanded Bioinfo EQA will include RSV, alongside the ongoing influenza and SARS-CoV-2 assessments; as well as additional courses including face-to-face trainings, twinnings, and virtual courses. Lex & Associates www.ecdc.europa.eu RESPIRATORY VIRUSES TEAM Saatja: "ECDC respiratory viruses" <[email protected]> Teema: For Information: 2025 Newsletter & Season’s Greetings Kuupäev: 2025-12-19 11:53 Tähelepanu! Tegemist on väljastpoolt asutust saabunud kirjaga. Tundmatu saatja korral palume linke ja faile mitte avada. To: National Focal Points for Viral Respiratory Diseases, Operational Contact Points (Epi, Micro) for( Influenza, Covid-19, SARI) for ERVI-Net Observer National Focal Points for Viral Respiratory Diseases (Enlargement Countries) Contact Points for Operations (Epi, Micro) for ( Influenza, Covid-19, SARI) for ERVI –Net (Enlargement Countries) Cc: National Coordinators, National Correspondents (Enlargement Countries) Dear Colleagues, We are delighted to share with you our 2025 Newsletter, which highlights the remarkable work and achievements we’ve accomplished together this year. A heartfelt thank you for your valuable contributions and collaboration. As we draw the year to a close, we wish you and your loved ones joyful holidays and a wonderful start to 2026! Please find the newsletter attached for your enjoyment. Warm regards, The Respiratory Viruses Team European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) Gustav III:s boulevard 40, 169 73 Solna, Sweden Phone +46 (0)8 58 60 10 00 www.ecdc.europa.eu Follow ECDC on: Confidentiality Notice If you are not the intended recipient of this message, you are hereby kindly requested, to, consecutively, refrain from disclosing its content to any third party, delete it and inform its sender of the erroneous transmittal. Classified as ECDC NORMAL