Australia's notifiable diseases status, 2002: Annual report of the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System - Laboratory Virology and Serology Surveillance Scheme (LabVISE)

The Australia’s notifiable diseases status, 2002 report provides data and an analysis of communicable disease incidence in Australia during 2002. The full report is available in 20 HTML documents. This document contains the section on the Laboratory Virology and Serology Surveillance Scheme. The full report is also available in PDF format from the Table of contents page.

Page last updated: 04 March 2004


This article {extract} was published in Communicable Diseases Intelligence Vol 29 No 1 March 2005 and may be downloaded as a full version PDF from the Table of contents page.


Results, continued

Other communicable disease surveillance

Laboratory Virology and Serology Reporting Scheme

The Laboratory Virology and Serology Reporting Scheme (LabVISE) is a passive surveillance scheme based on voluntary reports of infectious agents from sentinel virology and serology laboratories around Australia. LabVISE provides data on diagnoses of a number of infectious viruses, parasites and fungi. Interpretation of data from LabVISE is limited by uncertainties regarding its representativeness, lack of denominator data to calculate positivity rates, variable reporting coverage over time and lack of consistent case definitions. LabVISE has an important role in supplementing information of diseases under surveillance in NNDSS and in monitoring infectious agents that are not reported by other surveillance systems.

In 2002, a total of 14 laboratories reported 26,052 infectious agents to LabVISE. This represents a 7 per cent increase from reports received in the previous year (Table 17). The top three reporting laboratories were from South Australia (24%), Western Australia (25%) and Queensland (18%). The two jurisdictions with the largest populations, New South Wales and Victoria, contributed 17 per cent and 12 per cent respectively, to the total reports received by LabVISE (Table 17).

Table 17. Infectious agents reported to the Laboratory Virology and Serology Reporting Scheme, Australia, 2002, by state or territory


Organism
State or territory Total 2002 Total 2001
ACT NSW NT Qld SA Tas Vic WA
Measles virus
0
0
0
2
0
0
13
1
16
123
Mumps virus
0
2
1
1
0
0
6
6
16
32
Rubella virus
1
4
1
63
6
0
13
4
92
84
Hepatitis A virus
0
3
11
20
18
0
3
15
70
81
Hepatitis D virus
0
0
0
1
3
0
3
0
7
11
Hepatitis E virus
0
0
1
0
0
2
5
1
9
5
Ross River virus
0
7
26
247
31
11
7
94
423
863
Barmah Forest virus
0
11
6
152
4
1
6
23
203
269
Dengue
1
1
118
3
3
0
1
41
168
221
Murray Valley encephalitis virus
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
6
7
7
Kunjin virus
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
3
3
9
Flavivirus (unspecified)
0
0
3
26
0
1
13
0
43
26
Adenoviruses
3
177
20
44
344
0
125
357
1,070
1,205
Herpesviruses
62
512
119
1,173
1,349
19
347
1,061
4,642
4,849
Other DNA viruses
6
7
16
39
131
0
72
89
360
441
Picornavirus
8
523
34
10
46
10
55
623
1,309
1,519
Ortho/paramyxoviruses
9
1,570
24
381
1,585
38
500
2,169
6,276
4,618
Other RNA viruses
82
497
5
5
667
83
789
409
2,537
1,891
Chlamydia trachomatis not typed
26
555
173
1,133
860
39
20
1,053
3,859
3,404
Chlamydia pneumoniae
14
2
2
0
0
0
0
14
32
7
Chlamydia psittaci
0
0
2
1
5
2
37
15
62
77
Mycoplasma pneumoniae
7
118
10
202
317
29
401
148
1,232
966
Mycoplasma hominis
0
2
0
0
0
0
0
0
2
1
Coxiella burnetii (Q fever)
3
19
2
57
66
0
52
50
249
162
Rickettsia species
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
8
9
105
Streptococcus group A
85
32
44
269
0
0
95
0
525
399
Streptococcus group B
119
5
3
0
0
0
1
0
128
20
Yersinia enterocolitica
0
6
1
2
0
0
0
0
9
5
Brucella abortus
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
1
2
1
Brucella species
0
0
0
4
0
0
1
0
5
5
Bordetella pertussis
5
79
12
275
273
2
238
58
942
1,662
Legionella pneumophila
0
3
1
0
3
0
107
6
120
67
Legionella longbeachae
0
3
0
0
16
0
30
29
78
37
Legionella species
0
0
0
0
0
0
15
0
15
15
Cryptococcus species
0
3
1
9
17
0
0
0
30
21
Leptospira species
0
2
1
12
2
0
0
1
18
39
Borrelia burgdorferi
0
0
0
0
2
0
0
0
2
Treponema pallidum
0
152
362
389
421
0
8
64
1,396
1,119
Entamoeba histolytica
0
0
1
3
0
0
12
12
28
11
Toxoplasma gondii
2
9
0
0
6
1
8
2
28
35
Echinococcus granulosus
0
0
0
0
17
0
4
9
30
33
Total
433
4,304
1,000
4,523
6,192
238
2,990
6,372
26,052
24,445

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Sixty-six per cent (n=17,251) of all reports received by LabVISE were viral infectious agents, and the remaining 34 per cent (n=8,809) were bacterial or other infectious agents. Among viruses, ortho/paramyxoviruses (influenza, parainfluenza and respiratory syncytial virus) were the most commonly reported (33%; 6,276) followed by herpes viruses (24%; 4,642). Measles, mumps and rubella contributed 11 per cent of reports of viral infections (Figure 64). Among non-viral infectious agents, Chlamydia trachomatis (43%, 3,859), Treponema pallidum (16%, 1,396) and Mycoplasma pneumoniae (13%, 1,232) were the most commonly reported pathogens.

Figure 64. Reports of viral infections to the Laboratory Virology and Serology Reporting Scheme, 2002, by viral group

Figure 64. Reports of viral infections to the Laboratory Virology and Serology Reporting Scheme, 2002, by viral group

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