15 Prevention & Control of Invasive Diseases

Invasive diseases are bacterial infections of normally sterile sites such as blood, the fluid of the spinal cord and brain (cerebrospinal fluid or CSF), bone, or vital organs such as the heart, brain or liver. The majority of infections with these bacteria cause milder illness, which is not tracked in this report. Those that are found in normally sterile body sites indicate a severe disease which is reportable and presented in the following section.

These diseases include group B Streptococcus, group A Streptococcus, Haemophilus influenzae, Neisseria meningitidis, and Streptococcus pneumoniae. When bacteria move into parts of the body that are usually bacteria-free, the resulting disease is very severe and often leads to hospitalization or even death.