National Shigella Surveillance

National Shigella surveillance data are collected through passive surveillance of laboratory-confirmed human Shigella infections. Clinical diagnostic laboratories submit Shigella isolates to state and territorial public health laboratories, where they are confirmed, speciated, and subtyped. Unusual or untypable isolates are forwarded to the National Shigella Reference Laboratory in the Enteric Diseases Laboratory Branch (EDLB) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); results are reported back to public health laboratories.

State and territorial public health laboratories report Shigella infections electronically to CDC through a variety of mechanisms. Data are collected into the Laboratory-based Enteric Disease Surveillance (LEDS) system. The Division of Foodborne, Waterborne, and Environmental Diseases (DFWED) in the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases maintains national Shigella surveillance in LEDS. The annual summaries of these data are the national source of species and subtype information for Shigella.

Surveillance Overview

National Shigella Surveillance Overview pdf icon[PDF – 2 pages]