A quarterly update on food- and waterborne diseases in Europe--summary of data for the third quarter of 2007.

This paper highlights findings from the first quarterly report on food- and waterborne diseases produced by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). In the past such reports had been generated by Enter-net, a Europe-based international surveillance network for the enteric infections. The quarterly reports are an important surveillance tool for the network participants and other public health professionals to use in order to identify emerging trends and changes taking place in a shorter interval than one year.