Assessing neonatal herpes reporting in the United States, 2000-2005

We describe neonatal herpes reporting and the number of cases reported in states with reporting requirements in the United States, 2000-2005.

A national assessment of neonatal herpes reporting practices was conducted using an e-mail and phone query.

Neonatal herpes was a reportable condition in 9 states in the United States from 2000-2005: CT, MA, FL, OH, NE, LA, SD, DE, and WA. There was no standard surveillance case definition in 5 states and in 4 states there was no specific form for reporting neonatal herpes. Few cases were reported in any state (range, 0-13 cases per year). A total of 112 cases were reported in these 9 states over 5 years (2000-2004); the overall incidence rate was 4 cases/100,000 live births.

Although reportable in some states, neonatal herpes is not currently a nationally reportable disease. As currently employed by individual states during this time frame, neonatal herpes reporting does not appear to be a reliable way to assess burden of disease. Development of a standard case definition and assessment of the best approaches for local and national neonatal herpes surveillance may improve performance of such reporting.