Monitoring of infectious diseases

In Poland the epidemiological situation of infectious diseases is monitored by the public health service (so called National Sanitary Inspection). It is formed by a ministerial agency – the Chief Sanitary Inspectorate, 16 regional health departments, and 356 local public health departments.

All physicians are mandated by law to report on all newly diagnosed cases of infectious diseases. The reports are sent to the National Institute of Public Health, where they are analysed. The list of infectious diseases to be reported by physicians includes 72 entities (diseases and syndromes), including most vaccine-preventable diseases. The number of new cases of selected diseases is published in bi-weekly reports. Some more detailed reports on cases reported through the year are published in annual reports. More detailed surveillance reports including additional sources of data (case reports, detailed microbiological results, etc) are published each year in the issue 2 (or 3) of Epidemiological Review, the peer-review journal published in Polish and English by the National Institute of Public Health. The latest reports, including data and commentaries on infectious diseases occurrence in Poland in 2014, were published in the issue 2/2016.