Reporting cases of certain communicable diseases is required by North Carolina law in order to protect the public's health. When a medical provider diagnosis a patient with a reportable disease, the case is required to be reported to the local and state health departments.

The Reportable Disease List for North Carolina. provides a full list of the 80+ diseases which North Carolina medical professionals are required to report.

All medical professionals are required to report cases of communicable diseases.

This includes veterinarians, coroners, individuals in charge of school systems, and medical laboratories.

The reports contain the name of the individual, the name of the communicable disease, and the individual's contact information in case additional information is needed.

All identifying information reported to the Public Health Department is confidential and protected by law. The information is used strictly for the purpose of maintaining surveillance on the numbers and locations of reported cases.

It is normal to have a few cases of some communicable disease throughout the year such as childhood chicken pox.

It is also normal to see an increase in the number of some communicable diseases during certain times of the year such as the increase in the number of flu cases during the winter.

The Public Health Communicable Disease (CD) Team continuously monitors the numbers of each diseases and watches for any patterns or changes in typical numbers. This monitoring is called Disease Surveillance.

If unusual patterns or numbers develop, the CD Team takes steps to help stop the disease from spreading further.

If the numbers of a reported disease begin to increase, the CD Team will evaluate the cases to determine if there is a common source among the reports. 

This is called contact tracing and is done by calling the individuals with the disease and asking questions regarding where they have recently been and who they have had contact with in the week prior to getting sick.

Collecting this information from several individuals with the same disease can help determine if they hall have something in common. For example, did the majority of new cases all recently eat at the same restaurant, attend the same party, or all recently travel to the same location? This information can help the CD Team locate the source of the communicable disease.

Once the source is located, the CD Team is able to contact other people who ate at the same restaurant, attended the same party, or flew on the same plane and inform them they may have been exposed to a communicable disease and provide them with the information they need such as:

• the symptoms they should watch for
• if testing is recommended
• if preventative medications are available
• if they need to seek medical care for further evaluation

The CD Team will also develop a plan to help prevent infected individuals from transmitting the infection to other members of the community.

A confidential Communicable Disease Reporting Form should be completed for any reportable disease.

Fax completed forms to 704-296-4887

After-hours phone number for urgent cases: 704-296-4420

Monkeypox Memo For Providers June 2022