Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answers of 3 May 2018 to Questions 139593 and 139592, for what reasons (a) neonatal herpes has not yet been considered for categorisation as a notifiable disease and (b) no information on the incidence of that disease is held centrally.
Type 1 and 2 of the herpes infection were considered for categorisation as a notifiable disease in 2010 when the Health Protection Regulations were undergoing development; expert opinion and consultation concluded that they should not be included. Further information is available at the following link:
Hospital Episode Statistics do collect diagnoses of herpes; however, it is not possible to identify neonates. This is because identifiers including date of birth are stripped from records submitted with sensitive codes such as sexually transmitted diseases.