Notification of a number of specified infectious diseases is required under the Public Health (Infectious Diseases) 1988 Act and the Public Health (Control of Diseases) 1988 Act. There have been such acts in force for over a hundred years. The information is forwarded to the Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre (CDSC) for collation and weekly reports produced.
Acts require that if a registered medical practitioner knows of, or suspects, a case of one of the notifiable diseases or food poisoning within their area, then they must report it to the local authority's medical officer for environmental health (unless they believe that another medical practitioner has already done so).
A fee is payable.
Notification takes place via the appropriate form and includes:
- Patient's name, age, sex and home address
- The disease or form of poisoning being reported
- Date of onset.
If in hospital also:
- Hospital address
- Day admitted
- Whether the disease was contracted in hospital.
Telephone or fax can be used in urgent cases.
| List of notifiable diseases |
- Acute
encephalitis
- Acute poliomyelitis
- Anthrax
- Cholera
-
Diphtheria
-
Dysentery
- Food poisoning
- Leptospirosis
-
Malaria
-
Measles
- Meningitis - all types
-
Meningococcal septicaemia
(without meningitis)
-
Mumps
- Ophthalmia neonatorum
- Paratyphoid fever
|
- Plague
- Rabies
- Relapsing fever
- Rubella
- Scarlet fever
-
Smallpox
- Tetanus
- Tuberculosis
- Typhoid fever
- Typhus fever
- Viral haemorrhagic fever
- Viral hepatitis - all types
- Whooping cough
- Yellow fever
|
Notify
leprosy
directly to the Director, CDSC | 
