Australia's notifiable disease status, 2008: annual report of the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System

Abstract

In 2008, 65 communicable diseases and conditions were nationally notifiable in Australia. States and territories reported a total of 160,508 notifications of communicable diseases to the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System, an increase of 9% on the number of notifications in 2007. In 2008, the most frequently notified diseases were sexually transmissible infections (69,459 notifications, 43% of total notifications), vaccine preventable diseases (34,225 notifications, 21% of total notifications) and gastrointestinal diseases (27,308 notifications, 17% of total notifications). There were 18,207 notifications of bloodborne diseases; 8,876 notifications of vectorborne diseases; 1,796 notifications of other bacterial infections; 633 notifications of zoonoses and 4 notifications of quarantinable diseases.