Infectious Disease Surveillance in Romania: Second Edition

A special issue of Microorganisms (ISSN 2076-2607). This special issue belongs to the section "Public Health Microbiology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 January 2026 | Viewed by 877

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
1. Department of Epidemiology, Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy, 050474 Bucharest, Romania
2. National Institute for Infectious Diseases “Prof. Dr. Matei Balș”, 021105 Bucharest, Romania
Interests: vaccine preventable diseases; surveillance; vaccination; infection control; influenza; West Nile
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue is a continuation of our 2025 Special Issue “Infectious Disease Surveillance in Romania”.

Communicable diseases continue to pose a challenge to public health systems, both globally and in Romania. Diseases can spread rapidly from one country to another, with new pathogens being identified frequently. Antibiotic resistance, a lack of information, misinformation, vaccine hesitancy, migration, and economic and social crises are the risk factors associated with outbreaks, so it is necessary to implement robust, functional surveillance systems that provide timely information regarding the monitoring of communicable disease trends. This is necessary to identify risk factors and areas for intervention. Epidemiological surveillance systems must be capable of collecting and analyzing data, disseminating information to public health authorities, and regularly assessing the effectiveness of the disseminated data.

This Special Issue aims to present recent findings related to the surveillance and control of communicable diseases in Romania. We welcome both original research and review articles whose scope includes, but is not limited to, the following topics:

  • The surveillance, epidemiology, clinical and microbial features of communicable diseases in Romania;
  • The surveillance of vaccine-preventable diseases and vaccinations in special population groups;
  • The molecular epidemiology of specific infections;
  • Challenges and advances in the surveillance and control of outbreaks, and in alert management;
  • The surveillance of influenza, COVID-19 and severe acute respiratory infections;
  • The surveillance of healthcare-associated infections, antimicrobial resistance and antibiotic consumption;
  • The technologies and tools used for the surveillance and control of communicable diseases, including vaccination monitoring;

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Daniela Piţigoi
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • surveillance
  • vaccine preventable diseases
  • antimicrobial resistance
  • health care associated infection
  • influenza
  • COVID-19
  • Romania

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

13 pages, 639 KB  
Article
Hepatitis E Virus Infection in a Hospital from Southern Romania—New Data About a Threat to Public Health
by Cristina Popescu, Alexandra Cireșă, Gabriel Adrian Popescu, Carmen Cristina Vasile, Leontina Mirela Bănică and Dragoș Florea
Microorganisms 2025, 13(10), 2290; https://doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms13102290 - 1 Oct 2025
Viewed by 481
Abstract
This study analyses all cases of acute hepatitis E diagnosed in a southern Romanian hospital from 2019 to 2023. Patients with positive anti-HEV IgM antibodies were included in three groups: group A1—96 patients with probable HEV infection and ALT levels over 2.5-fold the [...] Read more.
This study analyses all cases of acute hepatitis E diagnosed in a southern Romanian hospital from 2019 to 2023. Patients with positive anti-HEV IgM antibodies were included in three groups: group A1—96 patients with probable HEV infection and ALT levels over 2.5-fold the upper limit of normal (ULN); group A2—44 patients with probable HEV infection and ALT levels under 2.5-fold ULN; group B—43 patients with probable HEV coinfection with another hepatotropic virus. Between 2019 and 2023, 642 patients were diagnosed with acute viral hepatitis. Positive anti-HEV IgM antibodies were detected in 183 (28.5%) cases, HEV being the second most common cause of acute viral hepatitis. Patients from group A were older than those from group B (47.26 ± 15.13 years vs. 35.95 ± 14.83 years, p < 0.01). Patients from group A were less likely to present clinical features compared to those from group B: digestive symptoms (73.8% vs. 97.2%, p < 0.01), jaundice (38.9% vs. 88.4%, p < 0.01), hepatomegaly (64.1% vs. 88.6%, p = 0.02). Patients from group A, compared to patients from group B, had lower levels of ALT (18.2 ± 29.9 ULN vs. 83.7 ± 56.2 ULN, p < 0.01) and total bilirubin (3.08 ± 5.2 mg/dL vs. 7.82 ± 5.25 mg/dL, p < 0.01) at admission. Patients from group A had higher levels of anti-HEV IgM antibodies (4.3 ± 3.22 vs. 2.55 ± 1.34, p < 0.01) than those from group B. Nearly all patients had no history of travel; therefore, autochthonous origin of HEV is involved in a large majority of cases. Currently, hepatitis E virus is not an uncommon aetiology of acute hepatitis in Romania, more often in adults and elderly patients. The epidemiological and clinical features of HEV infections plead for a zoonotic transmission in most cases. The significant number of cases of hepatitis E diagnosed in a single centre in Bucharest justifies the need to include early testing for HEV in patients with acute hepatitis. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Infectious Disease Surveillance in Romania: Second Edition)
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