Infectious Disease Reporting and Data | Vermont Department of Health

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Reportable Disease Rule

The Reportable Disease Rule has been updated for 2024.

For key changes and highlights, please see the Health Advisory Notification.

Vermont’s list of reportable diseases and the time frames in which they are required to be reported to the Health Department are specified in Vermont law (Reportable and Communicable Disease Rule).

The Vermont Department of Health depends on reports of diseases and conditions of public health concern to protect the health of Vermont residents. Timely reporting ensures that cases of communicable disease can be investigated quickly so steps can be taken to prevent the spread of the disease. Organizations and professionals who know or suspect that a person has (or has died of) a disease dangerous to the public’s health are required to report to the Health Department.

Health care providers and laboratories are required by law to notify the Health Department regarding patients with certain suspected or confirmed reportable diseases. Both laboratory confirmed and clinical diagnoses are reportable within 24 hours. Immediate reporting is essential for a limited number of conditions that require prompt public health follow-up (like measles and meningococcal disease), and for diseases that might indicate a bioterrorism incident.

Who Must Report

According to the Rule, the following professionals are required to report suspected or confirmed cases of reportable diseases:

Infection preventionists
Health care providers
Laboratory directors
Nurses
Nurse practitioners
Physician assistants
Physicians
School health officials
Administrators of long-term care and assisted living facilities
Any other health care provider, as defined by 18 V.S.A 9402
Veterinarians (for reportable animal diseases)

How To Report

Call by phone for all immediately reportable findings.

Phone: The Infectious Disease Program at 802-863-7240 or 1-800-640-4374 (within Vermont only) from 7:45 a.m. through 4:30 p.m. on business days. An epidemiologist is available 24/7 for immediately reportable diseases.

For diseases reportable within 24 hours (non-immediate), report online or fax.

Report online: Health care professionals can use a secure online report form for conditions that are not immediately notifiable. Do not use this form for immediately notifiable conditions or Lyme disease. Clinical information for cases of Lyme disease no longer needs to be reported to the Health Department; instead, laboratory evidence of infection is required to be counted in surveillance estimates in Vermont. Please see 2022 Health Advisory for more information.
Fax: Health Care professionals can fax paper reports to the Epidemiology Program's confidential fax at 802-951-4061 for non-immediately reportable diseases.

Reporting Laboratory Findings

Use electronic laboratory reporting or for immediately reportable findings, call the Infectious Disease Program at 802-863-7240 or 1-800-640-4374 (VT only), available 24/7.

If you have questions about how to send specimens to the VDHL, please call customer service at 802-338-4724.

Reportable Diseases and Lab Findings

∗ Examples of institutions for influenza outbreak reports include long-term care facilities, schools, child care facilities, correctional facilities, shelters, camps, hospitals, and day care centers.

Download a PDF of the Reportable Disease list

Diseases, Syndromes, and Treatments	Reportable Laboratory Findings	Reporting Timeline	Specimens Required to go to VDHL
Anaplasmosis	Anaplasma phagocytophilum	Within 24 hours
Anthrax	Bacillus anthracis, bacillus cereus, biovar anthracis	Immediately	Yes
Babesiosis	Babesia microti, Babesia divergens, Babesia duncani	Within 24 hours
Blastomycosis	Blastomyces species	Within 24 hours
Blood lead levels	All results, including undetectable	Within 24 hours
Botulism	Clostridium botulinum	Immediately	Yes
Brucellosis	Brucella species	Immediately	Yes
Campylobacteriosis	Campylobacter species	Within 24 hours	Yes
Candida auris illness	Candida auris	Within 24 hours	Yes
Carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii (CRAB) infection/colonization	Carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii (CRAB), including susceptibility results	Within 24 hours	Yes
Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales (CRE) infection/colonization	Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales (CRE), including susceptibility results	Within 24 hours	Yes
Carbapenem-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa (CRPA) infection/colonization	Carbapenem-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa (CRPA), including susceptibility results	Within 24 hours	Yes
Chikungunya virus disease	Chikungunya virus	Within 24 hours
Chlamydia trachomatis infection	Chlamydia trachomatis	Within 24 hours
Cholera	Vibrio cholerae serogroups O1 or O139	Immediately	Yes
COVID-19 – positive results	SARS-CoV-2	Within 24 hours
COVID-19-related pediatric deaths	SARS-CoV-2	Within 24 hours
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease/transmissible spongiform encephalopathies	N/A	Within 24 hours
Cryptosporidiosis	Cryptosporidium species	Within 24 hours	Yes
Cyclosporiasis	Cyclospora cayetanensis	Within 24 hours
Dengue	Dengue virus	Within 24 hours
Diphtheria	Corynebacterium diphtheriae	Immediately	Yes
Eastern equine encephalitis	Eastern equine encephalitis virus	Within 24 hours	Yes
Ehrlichiosis	Ehrlichia chaffeensis, Ehrlichia ewingii, Ehrlichia muris eauclairensis	Within 24 hours
Encephalitis	N/A	Within 24 hours
Glanders	Burkholderia mallei	Immediately	Yes
Gonorrhea	Neisseria gonorrhoeae	Within 24 hours
Haemophilus influenzae disease, invasive	Haemophilus influenzae, isolated from a normally sterile site, including susceptibility results	Immediately	Yes
Hantavirus disease	Hantaviruses	Within 24 hours	Yes
Hard tick relapsing fever	Borrelia miyamotoi	Within 24 hours
Hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS)	N/A	Within 24 hours
Hepatitis A (acute)	Hepatitis A virus (anti-HAV IgM)	Immediately
Hepatitis B	Hepatitis B virus (HBsAg, anti-HBcIgM, HBeAg, HBV DNA)	Within 24 hours
Hepatitis B, positive surface antigen in a pregnant person	Hepatitis B virus (HbsAg)	Within 24 hours
Hepatitis C	Positive hepatitis C antibody results and all positive and non-detectable nucleic acid test results, including genotype	Within 24 hours
Hepatitis E	Hepatitis E virus (IgM anti-HEV)	Within 24 hours
Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection/AIDS	Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) including the following: HIV viral load measurement, including non-detectable results All HIV subtype and HIV nucleotide sequence data from antiretroviral drug resistance testing	Within 24 hours
Infant botulism	Clostridium botulinum	Immediately	Yes
Influenza - only novel influenza A strains	Only novel influenza A strains	Immediately	Yes - only novel influenza A
Influenza-related pediatric deaths and institutional outbreaks	N/A	Within 24 hours
Jamestown Canyon virus disease	Jamestown Canyon virus	Within 24 hours	Yes
La Crosse virus disease	La Crosse virus	Within 24 hours	Yes
Legionellosis	Legionella species	Within 24 hours	Yes
Leptospirosis	Leptospira species	Within 24 hours	Yes
Listeriosis	Listeria monocytogenes	Within 24 hours	Yes
Lyme disease	Borrelia burgdorferi, Borrelia mayonii	Within 24 hours
Malaria	Plasmodium species	Within 24 hours
Measles (Rubeola)	Measles virus	Immediately
Melioidosis	Burkholderia pseudomallei	Immediately	Yes
Meningitis, bacterial	Neisseria meningitidis isolated from a normally sterile site, including susceptibility results, Streptococcus pneumoniae isolated from a normally sterile site, including susceptibility results, Haemophilus influenzae isolated from a normally sterile site, including susceptibility results	Immediately
Meningococcal disease	Neisseria meningitidis, isolated from a normally sterile site, including susceptibility results	Immediately	Yes
Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS)	MERS CoV	Immediately	Yes
Mpox (human monkeypox)	MPXV Clade I and Clade II, non-variola Orthopoxvirus	Within 24 hours
Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C)	SARS-CoV-2	Within 24 hours
Mumps	Mumps virus	Within 24 hours
Pertussis (whooping cough)	Bordetella pertussis	Within 24 hours
Plague	Yersinia pestis	Immediately	Yes
Poliovirus infection, including poliomyelitis	Poliovirus	Immediately
Powassan virus disease	Powassan virus	Within 24 hours	Yes
Psittacosis	Chlamydia psittaci	Within 24 hours
Q fever	Coxiella burnetii	Within 24 hours	Yes
Rabies, human and animal cases	Rabies virus	Immediately
Rabies post-exposure prophylaxis in humans Link to reporting form	N/A	Within 24 hours
Reye syndrome	N/A	Within 24 hours
Ricin toxicity	Ricin toxin	Within 24 hours	Yes
Rubella (German measles)	Rubella virus	Immediately
Rubella, congenital rubella syndrome	Rubella virus	Within 24 hours
Salmonella Paratyphi infection	Salmonella enterica serotypes Paratyphi A, B [tartrate negative], and C [S. Paratyphi]	Immediately	Yes
Salmonella Typhi infection	Salmonella enterica serotype Typhi	Immediately	Yes
Salmonellosis	Salmonella species (non-Typhi)	Within 24 hours	Yes
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)	SARS-CoV/SARS-associated	Immediately	Yes
Shiga toxin-producing E.coli (STEC)	Shiga toxin-producing E.coli (STEC) (including O157:H7)	Within 24 hours	Yes
Shigellosis	Shigella species	Within 24 hours	Yes
Smallpox	Variola virus	Immediately
Spotted fever group rickettsioses	Rickettsia species	Within 24 hours
St. Louis encephalitis	St. Louis encephalitis virus	Within 24 hours	Yes
Streptococcal disease, group A, invasive	Streptococcus pyogenes (group A), isolated from a normally sterile site	Within 24 hours	Yes
Streptococcal disease, group B invasive (infants less than one month of age)	Streptococcus agalactiae (group B), isolated from a normally sterile site (infants less than one month of age)	Within 24 hours
Streptococcus pneumoniae disease, invasive	Streptococcus pneumoniae, isolated from a normally sterile site, including susceptibility results	Within 24 hours
Syphilis	Treponema pallidum and all confirmatory tests for syphilis that result from an initial positive screening test, regardless of result (positive and negative)	Within 24 hours
Tetanus	Clostridium tetani	Within 24 hours
Toxic shock syndrome	N/A	Within 24 hours
Trichinellosis	Trichinella species	Within 24 hours
Tuberculosis disease	Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex, including susceptibility results, interferon gamma release assay (IGRA), tuberculin skin test (TST)	Immediately	Yes
Tuberculosis infection, latent	Interferon gamma release assay (IGRA), tuberculin skin test (TST)	Within 24 hours
Tularemia	Francisella tularensis	Immediately	Yes
Vaccinia (disease or adverse event)	Vaccinia virus	Within 24 hours
Varicella (chickenpox only)	Varicella virus	Within 24 hours
Vibriosis	Vibrio species	Within 24 hours	Yes
VRSA, VISA infection	Staphylococcus aureus, vancomycin resistant (VRSA) and vancomycin intermediate (VISA), including susceptibility results	Within 24 hours	Yes
West Nile virus illness	West Nile virus	Within 24 hours	Yes
Yellow fever	Yellow fever virus	Within 24 hours
Yersiniosis	Yersinia enterocolitica	Within 24 hours	Yes
Zika virus disease and infection	Zika virus	Within 24 hours

Reportable Animal Diseases

The list below shows reportable animal diseases to the Department of Health. Other diseases may be reportable to the Agency of Agriculture.

Reportable Animal Disease	Reporting Timeline
Anthrax	within 24 hours
Arboviral: eastern equine encephalitis, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, western equine encephalitis, West Nile virus	within 24 hours
Avian Chlamydiosis (Psittacosis, Ornithosis)	within 24 hours
Brucellosis (Brucella species)	within 24 hours
Glanders (Burkholderia mallei)	within 24 hours
Hantavirus	within 24 hours
Hendra virus	within 24 hours
Highly pathogenic avian influenza	within 24 hours
Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex	within 24 hours
Nipah virus	within 24 hours
Non-Variola Orthopoxvirus (mpox)	within 24 hours
Plague (Yersinia pestis)	within 24 hours
Q Fever (Coxiella burnetti)	within 24 hours
Rabies	within 24 hours
SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) infection	within 24 hours
Tularemia (Francisella tularensis)	within 24 hours
Typhus fever (Rickettsia prowazekii)	within 24 hours
Cryptosporidiosis	within 24 hours