§ Mr. Simon Hughesasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what steps he takes to ensure that all cases of meningitis are reported to the communicable disease surveillance centre.
§ Mrs. Currie[pursuant to her reply, 16 March 1987, c. 412]: Meningitis, as a notifiable disease, is required to be notified to the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys (OPCS) through the medical officer for environmental health, and not to the communicable disease surveillance centre (CDSC). However, CDSC does receive reports from public health laboratories of all cases of meningitis confirmed in the laboratory, and has prepared a composite of these reports and the notifications to OPCS. A comparative study has shown that there is a high degree of concordance between the two sets of figures.