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All notifications of communicable diseases and conditions from doctors, laboratories, hospitals, schools and child care centres are actively followed up to minimise transmission to Hunter New England residents.
HNEPH Bulletin
The Bulletin is published and distributed across the region on a monthly basis. It gives topical information on communicable diseases and management and treatment.
HNEPH's Work in this Area
The Public Health Act 1991 specified that diseases are to be reported to Public Health Units. HNEPH reduces or prevents the spread of diseases in the Hunter New England community by investigating each notification. Each case is entered into the NSW Health Notifiable Diseases Database. Privacy is protected under the Public Health Act 1991, which:
- Allows for the collection of information about notifiable diseases
- Requires notifiers to forward certain information to Public Health Units without necessarily seeking patient consent. However, it is recommended that a patient be so informed.
- Prevents Public Health Units from releasing information that might indentify individuals to anyone in the follow up of cases. Some information may be released by a Court Order.
Updates of Notifiable Diseases are published monthly in the Notifiable Diseases Tables and show the:
- Number of cases notified by disease for the stated month
- Total number of cases notified by disease for the current year
- Number of cases notified for the previous 2 years for the same period up to the month stated, called Year-to-Date (YTD)
- Total number of cases for the previous 3 years
The numbers in the table do not represent all notifiable diseases in the community, as not all diseases are detected and so are not reported. Diseases are different in nature and can occur at different times of the year, explaining variations in the numbers. Retrospective updating of data occurs with late notifications.
Information and Support
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