The mission of the North Carolina Immunization Branch is to protect the health of North Carolinians through the prevention, surveillance and control of vaccine-preventable diseases that can threaten public health. Vaccine-preventable diseases can be controlled by activities such as vaccination, isolation, antibiotic treatment and control measures.

Immunization Branch staff assist local health department staff, private healthcare providers and others in the state to confirm the occurrence of cases of illness, evaluate the need for intervention, and plan and implement control measures. In order to accomplish this, the Branch works closely with the local health departments in the state, providing advice and assistance where appropriate to promptly investigate and effectively treat each case of reportable vaccine-preventable disease.

VPD Surveillance Manual

The Manual for the Surveillance of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases provides current guidelines for those directly involved in surveillance of vaccine-preventable diseases, especially personnel at the local health departments. The Branch uses the CDC manual as the foundation for its statewide surveillance manual, with the addition of some hepatitis B material.

For each of the vaccine-preventable diseases, this manual includes a chapter describing the importance of rapid case identification; the importance of surveillance; disease reduction goals; case definitions (including clinical description and case classifications); epidemiologically important data to be collected during case investigation; activities for enhancing surveillance; activities for case investigation; and activities for outbreak control.