A print friendly PDF version is available from this Communicable Diseases Intelligence issue's table of contents.

Communicable Diseases Surveillance consists of data from various sources. The National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System (NNDSS) is conducted under the auspices of the Communicable Diseases Network Australia New Zealand. The Virology and Serology Laboratory Reporting Scheme (LabVISE) is a sentinel surveillance scheme. The Australian Sentinel Practice Research Network (ASPREN) is a general practitioner-based sentinel surveillance scheme. In this report, data from the NNDSS are referred to as 'notifications' or 'cases', whereas those from ASPREN are referred to as 'consultations' or 'encounters' while data from the LabVISE scheme are referred to as 'laboratory reports'.

Vaccine preventable diseases

The number of measles cases is higher in this period, largely because of the outbreak which is mainly in Victoria. Details of the outbreak are summarised below and on the web page at: www.health.gov.au/pubhlth/alert.htm.

Statistics at 15 April 1999 relating to the Victorian outbreak

• the index case was a young adult who had returned from Bali;
• the date of onset for the index case was 11 February 1999;
• 66 cases of measles have been reported to Victorian Health authorities;
• 25 persons have been admitted to hospital;
• all 6 cases aged between 0 and 8 years were unimmunised and
• 5 cases of vaccine failure have been identified (all had received one dose of a measles-only vaccine).

The number of notifications for pertussis infection remains relatively low, with the number of cases having onset in February 1999 being the lowest since July 1996.


This article was published in Communicable Diseases Intelligence Volume 23, No 4, 15 April 1999.