Streptococcus: Disease Control

(asked on 30th April 2024) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what systems her Department has in place to (a) track and (b) report cases of Group B Strep infection; and if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of making Group B Strep a notifiable disease on those systems.


Answered by
Maria Caulfield Portrait
Maria Caulfield
This question was answered on 7th May 2024

National surveillance systems, established and managed by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), are used to monitor trends, characteristics, and outcomes of Group B Streptococcus (GBS) infection, vital to prevention efforts. These include the reporting of cases diagnosed in local microbiology laboratories, and the submission of clinical isolates to the national reference laboratory. Analyses based on this surveillance is published in annual reports.

The UKHSA has jointly co-ordinated periods of enhanced surveillance with academic and public health collaborators, allowing greater understanding of risk factors and outcomes of infection, vital in identifying opportunities for prevention. Data generated through laboratory surveillance is utilised to assess the impact of prevention efforts.

The list of notifiable diseases is kept under review by the Department, with UKHSA involvement. Should GBS be added to the list of notifiable diseases, the means to assess the impact of this change on surveillance data will be considered.

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