The number of Campylobacter cases has leveled off in Europe, while Listeriosis is still on the rise, according to a report by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). The European Union Summary Report on Trends and Sources of Zoonoses, Zoonotic Agents and Food-borne Outbreaks in 2013 released this week summarized disease surveillance in 32 European countries. The data help the European Commission and EU Member States to monitor, control and prevent zoonotic diseases. Campylobacteriosis was the most commonly reported zoonotic disease in 2013, but, after several years of an increasing trend, the human infections have stabilized. Chicken was the main source of the pathogen, according to the report. Salmonellosis fell for the eighth year in a row, with a 7.9-percent decrease over 2012. The report attributes this to Salmonella control programs in poultry, and most Member States met their reduction targets for prevalence in poultry. Yersinia cases also continued to decrease, with a 2.8-percent reduction over 2012. Yersiniosis is the third most commonly reported zoonotic disease in the EU, with 6,471 cases. Listeria cases increased by 8.6 percent between 2012 and 2013, while Verocytotoxigenic E. coli (VTEC) infections rose by 5.9 percent. “The rise of reported invasive Listeriosis cases is of great concern as the infection is acquired mostly from ready-to-eat food and it may lead to death, particularly among the increasing population of elderly people and patients with weakened immunity in Europe,” said Mike Catchpole, the chief scientist at ECDC. And the rise in reported VTEC cases may have been an effect of increased awareness in European countries following the 2011 outbreak of E. coli O104:H4 associated with the consumption of contaminated raw sprouted seeds that affected more than 3,800 people in Germany and additional cases in 15 other countries. A total of 5,196 foodborne and waterborne outbreaks were reported in the EU in 2013. Most were caused by Salmonella, followed by viruses, bacterial toxins and Campylobacter.