Infectious Diseases

• The District Council receives notifications of infectious disease from a variety of sources including local GPs (under the Public Health Act 1984), test laboratories and members of the public.

• Commercial Team of environmental health personnel are then able to investigate these infectious diseases (e.g. food poisoning, Legionellosis, T.B.) as soon as possible to ascertain how they were acquired and what risk the individual poses to the community.

• This procedure allows implicated premises to be identified as quickly as possible so that appropriate remedial action can be taken. Infected people may need to be excluded from work (food handlers) until they are fully recovered to prevent the spread of disease.

• Infectious disease cases are further reported to the Proper Officer of the local authority (Consultant for Communicable disease Control - CDDC) who in turn passes this information to the Office of Population, Censuses and Surveys(OPCS), which then collates this data for national statistics purposes for England and Wales.

See also:

• Sampling & Monitoring
• Health Protection Agency