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Other communicable disease surveillance

Laboratory Virology and Serology Reporting Scheme

LabVISE is a passive surveillance scheme based on voluntary reports of infectious agents from virology and serology laboratories around Australia. In 2001, reports from the scheme were analysed and published quarterly in Communicable Diseases Intelligence. LabVISE provides information on a number of viruses and other infectious agents (bacteria, parasites and fungi) and the demographic characteristics of those infected. The scheme monitors some infectious agents that are not reported by other surveillance systems. Interpretation of LabVISE data is limited by uncertainties about the representativeness of the data, the lack of denominator data to calculate rates, and variable reporting coverage over time. In addition, there are no consistent case definitions currently in use. Data from LabVISE between 1991 and 2000 were recently analysed.¹⁰⁹

In 2001, 15 laboratories contributed 24,492 reports to LabVISE. This was an increase of 3.5 per cent on the number of reports in 2000 and data were received from one additional laboratory (Canberra Hospital, ACT) in 2001. The total reports received are shown by state and territory in Table 24.

Table 24. Infectious agents reported to the Laboratory Virology and Serology Reporting Scheme, 2001, by jurisdiction

Organism	State or territory								Aust
	ACT	NSW	NT	Qld	SA	Tas	Vic	WA
Measles virus	0	5	0	5	2	1	99	12	124
Mumps virus	0	1	0	1	4	0	8	18	32
Rubella virus	1	5	0	53	5	1	12	7	84
Hepatitis A virus	0	6	9	41	8	0	4	13	81
Hepatitis D virus	0	0	0	2	5	0	3	1	11
Hepatitis E virus	0	0	0	0	0	0	3	2	5
Ross River virus	0	31	92	463	89	3	33	153	864
Barmah Forest virus infection	0	14	7	208	3	0	1	36	269
Dengue	0	4	152	0	9	1	1	68	235
Murray Valley encephalitis virus	0	0	5	1	0	0	0	1	7
Kunjin virus	0	0	3	1	0	0	0	5	9
Flavivirus (unspecified)	0	0	2	8	0	0	16	0	26
Adenovirus	6	249	32	33	404	14	245	235	1,218
Herpes virus	16	508	82	1,117	1,445	26	651	1,018	4,863
Other DNA viruses	0	6	5	86	194	0	53	103	447
Picornavirus	15	644	50	30	40	18	169	596	1,562
Ortho/paramyxoviruses	23	1,383	56	242	1,284	57	443	1,166	4,654
Other RNA viruses	21	668	5	1	322	16	333	524	1,890
Chlamydia trachomatis	50	529	129	927	773	29	41	930	3,409
Chlamydia pneumoniae	0	3	1	1	0	0	0	2	7
Chlamydia psittaci	1	4	4	0	0	0	59	9	77
Mycoplasma pneumoniae	0	88	28	221	268	15	178	173	971
Coxiella burnetii	4	10	0	59	13	0	47	28	161
Rickettsia species	0	0	0	0	1	4	2	3	10
Streptococcus group A	13	32	36	209	0	0	109	0	399
Streptococcus group B	20	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	20
Yersinia enterocolitica	0	4	0	0	0	0	1	0	5
Brucella species	0	0	0	4	1	0	1	0	6
Bordetella pertussis	23	202	35	239	863	7	269	28	1,666
Legionella pneumophila	0	2	0	0	0	0	62	3	67
Legionella longbeachae	0	1	2	0	3	0	3	28	37
Legionella species	0	0	0	0	0	0	15	0	15
Cryptococcus species	0	5	0	4	12	0	0	0	21
Leptospira species	0	1	1	24	11	1	0	2	40
Treponema pallidum	0	91	257	353	377	0	2	41	1,121
Protozoa	-	11	-	2	5	4	21	3	46
Echinococcus granulosus	0	0	0	0	19	0	1	13	33
Total	193	4,507	993	4,335	6,160	197	2,885	5,221	24,492

Of reports received in 2001, 19,790 (81%) were of viral infections and 4,702 (19%) were bacterial or other infectious agents. Among the viral infections reported to LabVISE, viruses belonging to the herpes virus family (cytomegalovirus, varicella-zoster virus, Epstein-Barr virus and herpesvirus type 6) were the most commonly reported (4,863 reports, 24.5 per cent of all viral reports) . A similar number of reports of ortho/paramyxovirus infections (laboratory-confirmed influenza, parainfluenza, respiratory syncytial virus) were also received (4,654 reports, 23.5% of viral reports) (Figure 69). Laboratory reports of Chlamydia trachomatis made up 72 per cent of all non-viral reports to LabVISE in 2001 (n=3,409).

Top of pageFigure 69. Reports of viral infections to the Laboratory Virology and Serology Reporting Scheme, 2001, by viral group



There were 1,727 laboratory reports of varicella-zoster virus to LabVISE in 2001. Analysis of these reports over time showed that a peak in January coincided with a peak in hospitalisations for varicella in Australia (Figure 70).¹¹⁰ Laboratory testing for varicella is an important measure of the disease burden, which will become increasingly important should varicella vaccines be introduced into the Australian Standard Vaccination Schedule.

Figure 70. Laboratory reports of varicella-zoster virus to the Laboratory Virology and Serology Reporting Scheme and hospitalisations with a principal diagnosis of varicella, Australia, 1997 to 1999



There were 1,727 laboratory reports of rotavirus to LabVISE in 2001. LabVISE has received reports of rotavirus since 1991. Regular epidemics of rotavirus occur in Australia every winter (Figure 71).

Figure 71. Laboratory reports to the Laboratory Virology and Serology Reporting Scheme of rotavirus infection, Australia, 1991 to 2000, by month of specimen collection



There was a large outbreak of rotavirus gastroenteritis in the Northern Territory in 2001. The outbreak began in Alice Springs and spread throughout the Northern Territory and into western Queensland. Ninety-five per cent of cases were in children under the age of five years and notification rates were five times higher in Indigenous compared with non-Indigenous people. The predominant strain was serotype G9, a strain of rotavirus group A which has only been reported in the Northern Territory since 1999.¹¹¹ Surveillance of rotavirus by the National Rotavirus Reference Centre continued in 2001.¹¹² Between 1 June 2001 and 30 June 2002, 754 samples were examined and this has shown that serotype G9 has become the most prevalent and widely dispersed serotype in Australia.


This article was published in Communicable Diseases Intelligence Volume 27, No 1, March 2003.