Outcomes from the first two years of the Australian hepatitis C surveillance strategy.

The objectives of national hepatitis C surveillance are to identify those at risk in order to appropriately target prevention and care programs, and to evaluate the impact of these approaches. In 1998 the Communicable Diseases Network Australia New Zealand (CDNANZ) appointed the Hepatitis C Surveillance Committee to develop and implement approaches for improved hepatitis C surveillance in Australia. The Australian Hepatitis C Surveillance Strategy was endorsed in 1999 and provides a framework for improvements to national hepatitis C surveillance. The strategy covers two main surveillance activities: surveillance of incident and prevalent hepatitis C, and the long-term outcomes of hepatitis C. The committee (now the CDNA Viral Hepatitis Surveillance Committee) has continued to facilitate the implementation of the recommendations proposed. Progress towards improvement of hepatitis C surveillance in Australia includes the development of standard case reporting for hepatitis C, collation of data on incident and prevalent hepatitis C from a range of populations at lower and higher risk of hepatitis C, and collation of data from liver transplant registries. Advances in the implementation of the strategy are incremental. While there is enthusiastic commitment towards improving hepatitis C surveillance in Australia, the number of cases, the capacity and competing priorities of State and Territory health departments has meant that implementation has been challenging, highlighting the difficulties in introducing new systems into an already complex situation.