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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.
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