Data Collection

The National Enterovirus Surveillance System (NESS) is a passive surveillance system that has been collecting laboratory data on types of enteroviruses (including coxsackieviruses, echoviruses, and other enteroviruses) and human parechoviruses in the United States since the 1960s. Data are collected from collaborating public health and commercial laboratories in the United States. Laboratories report on a monthly basis to CDC positive enterovirus and human parechovirus detections by 

• serotype,
• specimen type,
• collection date,
• age, and
• gender.

NESS data are made available to public health professionals, health care providers, and the public. For a selected list of reports using NESS data, see Enterovirus Surveillance.

Data Collection

The web-based NESS system, available to participating laboratories since July 2009, has simplified reporting to CDC and has allowed for more timely recognition of outbreaks and trends in enterovirus activity. Laboratories with capacity to serotype are encouraged to report to NESS to help improve geographic and temporal surveillance.

Objectives

Type-based enterovirus surveillance in the United States has five objectives:

1. to help public health practitioners determine long-term patterns of circulation for individual enteroviruses,
2. to help interpret trends in enteroviral diseases (e.g., aseptic meningitis) by associating them with circulating types,
3. to assist with recognition of outbreaks associated with circulating types,
4. to help guide development of new diagnostic tests and therapies, and
5. to monitor poliovirus detections, thereby supplementing clinician-based poliomyelitis testing in the United States. Both paralytic poliomyelitis and non-paralytic poliovirus infections are nationally notifiable.