Communicable diseases intelligence.

Communicable Diseases Intelligence (CDI) is a fortnightly publication of the Australian Department of Human Services and Health and the Communicable Diseases Network of Australia and New Zealand. The Network comprises representatives of the Australian Department of Human Services and Health, the State and Territory health authorities, and other organizations involved in communicable disease surveillance and control from throughout the country. In addition, there is a representative from New Zealand. It has fortnightly teleconferences and other meetings to exchange information on emerging communicable disease activity and to coordinate surveillance and control activities. Each issue of CDI incorporates reports from Australia’s national communicable diseases surveillance systems, including the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System, the CDI Laboratory Reporting Schemes, and the Australian Sentinel General Practitioner Surveillance Network. Reports from the National Salmonella Surveillance Scheme, the Australian Gonococcal Surveillance Programme and the National HIV, AIDS, and Tuberculosis Reporting Systems are also regularly included. CDI also publishes timely reports of communicable disease outbreaks and other articles dealing with a wide range of subjects relevant to the surveillance and control of communicable diseases in Australia. Recently published items have reported, for example, the first identification of endemically acquired hepatitis E in the Northern Territory of Australia, an outbreak of influenza in a nursing home, the epidemiology of hepatitis A in South Australia, the epidemiology of Barmah Forest virus disease in Western Australia, and the outbreak of respiratory disease in humans and horses due to a previously unrecognized paramyxovirus.