COMMUNICABLE DISEASES SURVEILLANCE

New National Surveillance Programme

JAPAN.- A new nationwide surveillance programme for infectious diseases was started in July 1982, with the aim of collecting and assessing information concerning 18 selected diseases (exclusive of the diseases notifiable in this country), which have recently been recognized as being of public health importance. These are : pertussislike disease, streptococcal sore throat, atypical pneumonia, measles, rubella, varicella, mumps, septic and aseptic meningitis, acute encephalitis, winter vomiting and diarrhoea in infants, infectious diarrhoea, hand, foot, and mouth disease, erythema infectiosum, exanthem subitum, herpangina, pharyngo conjunctivitis, epidemic keratoconjunctivitis, and acute haemorrhagic conjunctivitis.



The new reporting system is based on 2 lines of information : case incidence and laboratory information.



A certain number of hospitals and clinics - the average being about 40 in each prefecture or designated area - have been assigned to serve as index stations. These institutions are required to report case incidence for each disease every week to the Regional Surveillance Committee. Laboratory information is obtained from about 15 of these stations, which collect specimens for diagnostic confirmation and forward them through the local health centre to the regional reference laboratory of the Prefectural Public Health Laboratory (PPHL). Some hospitals also provide information from their own laboratories. Additional information on the isolation of various pathogens from outbreak cases, as well as from foods, animals, and environmental sources, is also obtained from PPHLs.



Laboratory information and data on reported cases are collected by the National Surveillance Center and the National Institute of Health (NIH), respectively. These data, once computerized, are analyzed and evaluated by the Surveillance Committee. Data on the reported cases are summarized and fed back weekly, while the analysis and evaluation of laboratory information is disseminated monthly through the Regional Surveillance Center to those who submitted the basic data and to other relevant institutions.

(Based on/D'apres:Southeast Asian Medical Information Center, Newsletter, Vol.4, No.2, November/novembre 1982.)

（ＷＨＯ，ＷＥＲ，58，No.18，139，1983）