The name and address of people diagnosed with a reportable general category communicable disease is only available to our Communicable Disease Nurses, our Medical Director and one Office Assistant.  Each person who has a reportable disease has a client record that is kept in a locked area.  With some reportable communicable diseases, it is necessary for us to inform the director of a child care center, school nurse, or restaurant manager of the name and diagnosis of the infected individual in order to control the spread of the disease.  After the investigation is over, state law requires us to forward the name, address, gender, race, diagnosis, etc. of the infected individual(s) to the Division of Public Health (DPH) at the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.  The General Communicable Disease Control Branch at the DPH maintains a statistical database in which names and addresses can only be released to the county health department where the report originated.  For more information on the DPH, go to www.ncgov.com or www.dhhs.state.nc.us. For more information on the General Communicable Disease Control Branch, go to www.schs.state.nc.us/epi/.  After deleting client names and addresses, the DPH forwards statistical information to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on a weekly basis. The CDC publishes weekly statistics on communicable diseases reported in the United States each week in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). For information on the CDC or MMWR go to www.cdc.gov.  For North Carolina statistical information, go to http://www.epi.state.nc.us/epi/gcdc.html