Communicable diseases and immunization

Age — has been determined based on the date of birth; the age specified is the age at the moment of being infected by the communicable disease. The breakdown by age groups is in compliance with WHO recommendations.

Communicable disease — a disease or carrier state with no signs of disease, which is caused by the entry of an infectious agent into the human body which is transmitted or with regard to which there is reason to believe that it may be transmitted directly or indirectly person-to-person or animal-to-person.

County and cities Tallinn and Narva — 1) incidence of communicable diseases is divided by the patient' residence at the moment of diagnose; 2) immunization data is divided by the location of health care service provider where child is vaccinated.

ICD-10 — International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, 10th Revision.

Immunization is divided into main and repeated vaccination:

• Main vaccination is the first-time administration of prescribed vaccine amount(s) according to the immunisation schedule.
• Repeated i.e. re-vaccination is the administration of additional amounts of vaccine to maintain the immunity from the main vaccination and increase the level of immunity.

Incidence rate — the number of incidents to population in a specific time period, usually per 100,000 population.

Monitoring — health data, including epidemiological research on communicable diseases and the systematic collecting, analysis, interpreting and distribution of risk factor data to prevent and fight the spread of communicable diseases.

Person suffering from a communicable disease — an individual who has been diagnosed with a communicable disease by using methods accepted by medical science.

The data collection for the Estonian Communicable Diseases Registry is carried out under the framework of the national communicable diseases monitoring system. The data collection source document is the "Notice of a person suffering from a communicable disease", which is filled in with each diagnosed communicable disease case to be registered. Data suppliers to the Estonian Communicable Diseases Registry are all health care providers of the Republic of Estonia.

The Estonian Communicable Diseases Registry is based on the statute confirmed by a regulation of the Government of the Republic.

The list of communicable diseases, being the subject of submitting a "Notice of a person suffering from a communicable disease" as well as the data of the notice is specified by a regulation of the Government of the Republic.

Data of sexually transmitted diseases 1998-2007 are in a separate table (NH04) because up to 2007, the data on the subject was collected by the National Institute for Health Development with the report "Skin and venereal diseases". The Health Board (then The Health Protection Inspectorate) started collecting data on sexually transmitted diseases from 2005.

Data on immunization

Health care providers carrying out immunisation shall submit reports "Communicable diseases immunoprophylaxis" and "Immunisation coverage among children, students and adolescents" to the Health Board. The report "Communicable diseases immunoprophylaxis" is submitted once per quarter by the 5th date of the first month of each quarter. The report "Immunisation coverage among children, students and adolescents" is submitted once a year by January 10.

The International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems 10th Revision (ICD-10)

This classification is used to code diagnoses and submit the data about disease cases in accordance with the diagnoses. The classification system is available on the webpage of the World Health Organization.

National Institute for Health Development of Estonia, The National Health Service of Latvia, Health Information Centre, Institute of Hygiene, Lithuania. Health in the Baltic Countries 2016. Tallinn: National Institute for Health Development; 2018. Report is available here in pdf-format

National Institute for Health Development of Estonia, The National Health Service of Latvia, Health Information Centre, Institute of Hygiene, Lithuania. Health in the Baltic Countries 2015. Tallinn: National Institute for Health Development; 2017. Report is available here in pdf-format

National Institute for Health Development. HIV in Estonia. Narrative report for Global AIDS Monitoring 2017. Tallinn: National Institute for Health Development; 2017. Report is available here in pdf-format

National Institute for Health Development of Estonia, The National Health Service of Latvia, Health Information Centre, Institute of Hygiene, Lithuania. Health in the Baltic Countries 2014. Tallinn: National Institute for Health Development; 2016. Report is available here in pdf-format

National Institute for Health Development. HIV in Estonia: Situation, prevention, treatment, and care. Narrative report for GARPR 2015. Tallinn: National Institute for Health Development; 2015. Report is available here in pdf-format

Communicable diseases on the webpage of Estonian Health Board

Jevgenia Epštein

Estonian Health Board

Phone: +372 794 3500

E-mail: Jevgenia.Epstein[at]terviseamet.ee

Updated: 24.05.2021