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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 distributed by the patient' place of residence at the time of diagnosis; 2) data on immunization coverage are distributed based on the child's place of residence from 2022, and data from previous years up to and including 2021 are distributed by the location of the healthcare provider, 3) data on the number of vaccinated people are distributed by the location of the healthcare provider where the person was vaccinated.
ICD-10 — International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, 10th Revision.
Immunization is divided into main and repeated vaccination:
Immunization coverage shows the percentage of vaccinated persons in a given target group out of the annual average population of the corresponding group (annual average population calculated according to Statistics Estonia published table RV0240).
Incidence rate — the number of incidents to population in a specific time period, usually per 100,000 mean annual 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 Register 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 Register are all health care providers of the Republic of Estonia.
The Estonian Communicable Diseases Register is based on the statute confirmed by a regulation of the Minister responsible for the subject (in Estonian).
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 Minister responsible for the subject (in Estonian).
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
Starting from 2023, the Health and Welfare Information Systems Centre (TEHIK) will submit to the Health Board, in a previously agreed volume and time, a quarterly reports on the immunoprophylaxis of infectious diseases from the health information system, and at the beginning of each year, a report on children and adolescents immunization coverage as of the end of the previous year.
Until 2022 health care providers carrying out immunisation submitted reports "Communicable diseases immunoprophylaxis" and "Immunisation coverage among children, students and adolescents" directly to the Health Board. The report "Communicable diseases immunoprophylaxis" was submitted once per quarter by the 5th date of the first month of each quarter. The report "Immunisation coverage among children, students and adolescents" was submitted once a year by January 10.
Vaccination Statistics (COVID-19, Influenza)
Classification of Estonian administrative units and settlements (EHAK)
Classification is used in order to provide regional statistics. Regional statistics are submitted by 15 counties. Information about Tallinn, Narva and Tartu is submitted separately. Until 2017, data by the counties and municipalities is distributed by the administrative division that existed before administrative reform (October 2017). Data starting from 2018 is distributed by new administrative division. This classification system is available on the webpage of the Statistics Estonia in the Classifications section.
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
E-mail: Jevgenia.Epstein[at]terviseamet.ee
Updated: 29.04.2026