Reporting and Surveillance for Norovirus: NoroSTAT

CDC established the Norovirus Sentinel Testing and Tracking (NoroSTAT) network in August 2012. NoroSTAT is a collaborative network of fourteen state health departments and CDC working together to establish and maintain standard practices for norovirus outbreak reporting to CDC surveillance systems. These standards aim to improve the timeliness, completeness, and consistency of norovirus outbreak reporting. State health departments that participate in NoroSTAT promptly report specific epidemiologic and laboratory data on suspected or confirmed norovirus outbreaks to CDC. This information is used to quickly evaluate current norovirus outbreak activity, make comparisons to previous years, and assess strain-specific characteristics of norovirus outbreaks, including the impact of new strains on outbreak frequency and severity. More