This article {extract} was published in Communicable Diseases Intelligence Vol 31 No 1 March 2007 and may be downloaded as a full version PDF from the Table of contents page.

Results, continued

Table 4. Notifications and notification rate for communicable diseases, Australia, 2001 to 2005, (per 100,000 population)

Disease	Notifications					Rate per 100,000 population
	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005
Bloodborne diseases
Hepatitis B (incident)	422	383	345	282	245	2.2	2.0	1.7	1.4	1.2
Hepatitis B (unspecified)*	8,025	6,353	5,824	5,829	6,396	41.2	32.3	29.3	29.0	31.5
Hepatitis C (incident)	694	438	518	453	357	3.6	2.2	2.6	2.3	1.8
Hepatitis C (unspecified)*,†	19,370	14,462	13,716	12,993	12,250	99.4	73.6	69.0	64.6	60.3
Hepatitis D	20	20	27	28	30	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1
Gastrointestinal diseases
Botulism	2	0	1	1	3	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Campylobacteriosis‡	16,134	14,740	15,357	15,579	16,468	125.3	113.3	116.4	116.4	121.5
Cryptosporidiosis	1,629	3,266	1,223	1,684	3,209	8.4	16.6	6.2	8.4	15.8
Haemolytic uraemic syndrome	3	12	15	16	20	0.0	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1
Hepatitis A	539	388	431	319	325	2.8	2.0	2.2	1.6	1.6
Hepatitis E	14	12	12	28	31	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.2
Listeriosis	64	62	69	67	54	0.3	0.3	0.3	0.3	0.3
Salmonellosis (NEC)	7,050	7,699	7,008	7,834	8,441	36.2	39.2	35.2	39.0	41.5
Shigellosis	567	504	442	520	732	2.9	2.6	2.2	2.6	3.6
SLTEC, VTEC§	46	58	52	49	87	0.2	0.3	0.3	0.2	0.4
Typhoid	77	68	51	76	52	0.4	0.3	0.3	0.4	0.3
Quarantinable diseases
Cholera	4	5	1	5	3	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Plague	0	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Rabies	0	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Severe acute respiratory syndrome	0	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Smallpox	0	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Tularaemia	0	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Viral haemorrhagic fever	0	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Yellow fever	0	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Sexually transmitted infections
Chlamydial infections (NEC)||	20,330	24,043	30,439	36,227	41,311	104.3	122.4	153.1	180.1	203.2
Donovanosis	32	17	16	10	13	0.2	0.1	0.1	0.0	0.1
Gonococcal infection	6,291	6,279	6,792	7,187	8,015	32.3	32.0	34.2	35.7	39.4
Syphilis (all)¶	1,851	1,958	2,007	2,332	2,203	9.5	10.0	10.1	11.6	10.8
Syphilis < 2 years duration	0	0	0	615	621	0.0	0.0	0.0	3.1	3.1
Syphilis > 2 years or unknown duration	1,851	1,958	2,007	1,717	1,582	9.5	10.0	10.1	8.5	7.8
Syphilis – congenital	21	18	13	12	15	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1
Vaccine preventable diseases
Diphtheria	1	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Haemophilus influenzae type b	20	30	19	15	17	0.1	0.2	0.1	0.1	0.1
Influenza (laboratory confirmed)**	1,294	3,652	3,483	2,133	4,567	6.6	18.6	17.5	10.6	22.5
Measles	141	32	93	45	10	0.7	0.2	0.5	0.2	0.0
Mumps	116	67	77	102	241	0.6	0.3	0.4	0.5	1.2
Pertussis	9,506	5,407	5,096	8,752	11,200	48.8	27.5	25.6	43.5	55.1
Poliomyelitis	0	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Pneumococcal disease (invasive)	1,761	2,432	2,238	2,296	1,684	9.0	12.4	11.3	11.4	8.3
Rubella	264	254	54	31	31	1.4	1.3	0.3	0.2	0.2
Rubella – congenital	0	1	3	1	1	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Tetanus	3	4	4	5	2	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Vectorborne diseases
Barmah Forest virus infection	1,143	867	1,369	1,106	1,319	5.9	4.4	6.9	5.5	6.5
Dengue	131	165	860	351	218	0.7	0.8	4.3	1.7	1.1
Flavivirus infection (NEC)††	88	72	60	61	29	0.5	0.4	0.3	0.3	0.1
Japanese encephalitis virus	0	0	1	1	0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Kunjin virus‡‡	5	0	18	12	1	0.0	0.0	0.1	0.1	0.0
Malaria	719	462	595	558	822	3.7	2.4	3.0	2.8	4.0
Murray Valley encephalitis virus	6	2	0	1	2	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Ross River virus infection	3,226	1,451	3,850	4,210	2,544	16.6	7.4	19.4	20.9	12.5
Zoonoses
Anthrax	0	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Australian bat lyssavirus	0	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Brucellosis	21	40	20	39	41	0.1	0.2	0.1	0.2	0.2
Leptospirosis	250	159	127	177	130	1.3	0.8	0.6	0.9	0.6
Ornithosis§§	137	199	199	237	161	0.7	1.0	1.0	1.2	0.792
Lyssavirusunspecified	0	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Q fever	693	762	562	463	355	3.6	3.9	2.8	2.3	1.7
Other bacterial infections
Legionellosis	310	313	333	312	335	1.6	1.6	1.7	1.6	1.6
Leprosy	10	6	5	7	10	0.1	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Meningococcal infection||||	686	681	558	405	394	3.5	3.5	2.8	2.0	1.9
Tuberculosis	932	1,041	959	1,061	1,087	4.8	5.3	4.8	5.3	5.3
Total	104,648	98,884	104,942	113,912	125,461

* Unspecified hepatitis includes cases in whom the duration of infection could not be determined.

† In Queensland, includes incident hepatitis cases.

‡ Notified as 'foodborne disease' or 'gastroenteritis in an institution' in New South Wales.

§ Infection with Shiga-like toxin-/verotoxin-producing Escherchia coli (SLTEC/VTEC).

|| Includes Chlamydia trachomatis identified from cervical, rectal, urine, urethral, throat and eye samples, except for South Australia which reports only genital tract specimens; the Northern Territory which excludes ocular specimens; and Western Australia which excludes ocular and perinatal infections.

¶ Does not include congenital syphilis.

** Laboratory-confirmed influenza is not a notifiable disease in South Australia but reports are forwarded to NNDSS.

†† Flavivirus (NEC) replaced Arbovirus (NEC) from 1 January 2004.

‡‡ In the Australian Capital Territory, Murray Valley encephalitis virus and Kunjin virus are combined under Murray Valley encephalitis virus.

§§ In the Australian Capital Territory, ornithosis is reported as chlamydia not elsewhere classified.

|||| Only invasive meningococcal disease is nationally notifiable. However, New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory and South Australia also report conjunctival cases.

NN Not notifiable.

NEC Not elsewhere classified.

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In 2005, the total number of notifications was the highest recorded in NNDSS since the system began in 1991. There was an increase of 10% compared to the total number of notifications in 2004 (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Trends in notifications received by the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System, Australia, 1991 to 2005

In 2005, the most frequently notified diseases were sexually transmissible infections (51,557 notifications, 41% of total notifications), gastrointestinal diseases (29,422 notifications, 23%) and bloodborne diseases (19,278 notifications, 15%).

There were 17,753 notifications of vaccine preventable diseases; 4,935 notifications of vectorborne diseases; 1,826 notification of other bacterial infections and 687 notifications of zoonotic diseases (Figure 3).

Figure 3. Notifications to the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System, Australia, 2005, by disease category

The major changes in communicable disease notifications in 2005 are shown in Figure 4 as the ratio of notifications in 2005 to the mean number of notifications for the previous 5 years. The number of notifications of chlamydial, gonococcal, shigellosis, mumps, pertussis, SLTEC/VTEC and hepatitis E infections surpassed the expected range (5-year mean plus 2 standard deviations). Notifications of hepatitis B (incident), Q fever, flavivirus and listeriosis infections were below the expected range (5-year mean minus 2 standard deviations). Notifications for the remaining diseases were within the historical range.

Figure 4. Comparison of total notifications of selected diseases reported to the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System in 2005, with the previous 5-year mean

* Number of notifications surpassed the expected range (i.e. 5-year mean +2 standard deviations).

† Number of notifications was less than the expected range (i.e. 5-year mean –2 standard deviations).

In the financial year 2004–05, there were 87,520 hospital separations in Australian hospitals with a primary diagnosis of infectious diseases (International Classification of Diseases, version 10, Australian Modification (ICD10–AM) codes A01–B99, Australian Institute of Health and Welfare). This represents 1.2% of all hospital separations in that period. A further 65,494 separations were recorded with a principal diagnosis of influenza or pneumonia (ICD10–AM J10–J18).¹