Australia's notifiable diseases status, 2001: annual report of the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System

Abstract

In 2001 there were 104,187 notifications of communicable diseases in Australia reported to the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System (NNDSS). The number of notifications in 2001 was an increase of 16 per cent of those reported in 2000 (89,740) and the largest annual total since the NNDSS commenced in 1991. In 2001, nine new diseases were added to the list of diseases reported to NNDSS and four diseases were removed. The new diseases were cryptosporidiosis, laboratory-confirmed influenza, invasive pneumococcal disease, Japanese encephalitis, Kunjin virus infection, Murray Valley encephalitis virus infection, anthrax, Australian bat lyssavirus, and other lyssaviruses (not elsewhere classified). Bloodborne virus infections remained the most frequently notified disease (29,057 reports, 27.9% of total), followed by sexually transmitted infections (27,647, 26.5%), gastrointestinal diseases (26,086, 25%), vaccine preventable diseases (13,030 (12.5%), vectorborne diseases (5,294, 5.1%), other bacterial infections (1,978, 1.9%), zoonotic infections (1,091, 1%) and four cases of quarantinable diseases. In 2001 there were increases in the number of notifications of incident hepatitis C, chlamydial infections, pertussis, Barmah Forest virus infection and ornithosis. There were decreases in the number of notifications of hepatitis A, Haemophilus influenzae type b infections, measles, rubella, Ross River virus infections and brucellosis. This report also summarises data on communicable diseases from other surveillance systems including the Laboratory Virology and Serology Reporting Scheme and sentinel general practitioner schemes. In addition, this report comments on other important developments in communicable disease control in Australia in 2001.