Australia’s notifiable disease status, 2015: Annual report of the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System

Abstract

In 2015, 67 diseases and conditions were nationally notifiable in Australia. States and territories reported a total of 320,480 notifications of communicable diseases to the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System, an increase of 16% on the number of notifications in 2014. In 2015, the most frequently notified diseases were vaccine preventable diseases (147,569 notifications, 46% of total notifications), sexually transmissible infections (95,468 notifications, 30% of total notifications), and gastrointestinal diseases (45,326 notifications, 14% of total notifications). There were 17,337 notifications of bloodborne diseases; 12,253 notifications of vectorborne diseases; 1,815 notifications of other bacterial infections; 710 notifications of zoonoses and 2 notifications of quarantinable diseases.

Summary of national surveillance data on vaccine preventable diseases in Australia, 2012–2015

“…One case was a cutaneous infection of C. diphtheriae, imported from the Solomon Islands; the other was a pharyngeal infection due to C. ulcerans acquired in Australia. 51 The average annual notification rate for this reporting period was 0.01 per 100,000 population. Prior to this reporting period, a cluster of 3 cases with toxigenic C. diphtheriae from the pharynx were identified in Queensland in 2011.…”

Legionellosis Caused by Non-Legionella pneumophila Species, with a Focus on Legionella longbeachae

“…Most of these data are derived from cohort studies or case reports of patients who required admission to hospital. These reports demonstrate striking differences in the number of cases identified in Australia and New Zealand compared with Europe and North America [6,[55][56][57][58]. Most cases are sporadic, although clusters of Legionnaires' disease caused by L. longbeachae have been recognised in Scotland, where six cases of Legionnaires' disease caused by L. longbeachae were identified over a four-week period in 2013 [59], and in Sweden, where 30 cases were identified during spring/summer 2018 [60].…”

“…In Australia over the period of 2009 to 2015, the annual notification rate of Legionellosis using passive surveillance was about 1.5 per 100,000 people [6]. L. longbeachae was the more commonly identified (144 to 215 notified cases) compared with L. pneumophila (114 to 228 cases).…”

“…The one exception is Legionella longbeachae, which was first isolated from patients with pneumonia in the USA 40 years ago [5]. In some countries, such as Australia and New Zealand, where the aetiology of community-acquired pneumonia has been systematically studied, L. longbeachae disease has emerged as the predominant cause of legionellosis [6,7]. Cases are increasingly being reported from other regions as well.…”

“…The one exception is Legionella longbeachae, which was first isolated from patients w pneumonia in the USA 40 years ago [5]. In some countries, such as Australia and N Zealand, where the aetiology of community-acquired pneumonia has been systematica studied, L. longbeachae disease has emerged as the predominant cause of legionellosis [6 Cases are increasingly being reported from other regions as well. The countries that ha reported at least one case are shown in Figure 1, demonstrating that the conditions infection may occur in countries with widely varying climates and socioeconomic con tions.…”