HealthInfo West Coast-Te Tai Poutini
Notifiable diseases & hazard reporting
Pūrongo i ngā matepā me ngā matenga whakamōhio
Notifiable diseases are diseases that your doctor or nurse is required by law to tell public health services about. Examples of notifiable diseases are measles, mumps, whooping cough and some types of gastroenteritis.
Doctors and nurses must also tell public health services if you have an injury caused by a hazardous substance. Hazardous substances are things that can explode, corrode or be toxic to humans. Examples of injuries doctors and nurses have to report include firework injuries, lead poisoning and chemical burns.
The information about these disease and injuries may be used to:
- identify and manage an outbreak of a disease
- identify the source of the disease or injury
- identify new diseases or new sources of disease or injury
- monitor how much of a problem different diseases or injuries are
- improve immunisation strategies.
Information passed on may include your personal details. But this is not needed for all notifiable diseases.
The public health staff will review the information about your illness or injury. If they need more information, they will call you or send out a questionnaire for you to complete. In a few cases, they will need to visit you at home to talk with you further or to take soil or water samples.
They may also contact you to give you specific advice around managing your illness.
Your information will also be entered into a national database. This allows public health staff to monitor national disease rates and to compare disease rates between regions.
You can contact your local public health service if you have any questions or concerns.
Written by HealthInfo clinical advisers. Last reviewed April 2025.
SourcesReview key: HINOT-452068
