Chickenpox as a notifiable disease: information for health professionals
Source: gov.uk (2025-04-15)

Information for health professionals on the inclusion of Chickenpox (varicella) in the list of notifiable diseases

Information for registered medical practitioners

The importance of notification

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) has recommended inclusion of varicella vaccination within the routine childhood immunisation schedule. Chickenpox cases are mostly self-limiting and many do not need to seek healthcare. However, monitoring trends among those that do attend health services informs an understanding of the impact of any future vaccination program on those services. It also shows how such a vaccination programme could be optimised. Notifications from registered medical practitioners (RMPs) will be a key data source for this.

Testing for chickenpox

The use of testing in acute infections for diagnostic purposes is a local clinical decision. Chickenpox is primarily a clinical diagnosis. There is currently no additional testing proposed for surveillance purposes. In line with any government decisions related to the JCVI recommendation for a varicella vaccination programme, we will keep under review any testing requirements for surveillance purposes in the future and will communicate with health professionals in the event of any future developments.

Notifications and clinical practice

There is no change to existing clinical practice in relation to how patients are assessed for chickenpox; notification can be made by RMPs for any cases where this is suspected regardless of the type of consultation.

The recently introduced ‘Report a notifiable disease (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/report-a-notifiable-disease)’ electronic reporting system provides a new method to submit notifications which reduces the burden of notifications, although other pre-existing methods remain.

In developing the recommendation for a varicella vaccination programme, JCVI concluded that the introduction of a universal varicella vaccination programme will result in a large reduction of naturally occurring varicella. UKHSA therefore expects that following any future implementation, the numbers of cases to be notified will substantially decline. This experience has been demonstrated in several countries with routine varicella vaccination programmes including the US, Canada and Germany.

There is no change to your routine clinical practice in relation to how you see and assess patients; please notify chickenpox cases following your assessment irrespective of mode of consultation, using the notifiable disease information (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/report-a-notifiable-disease).

Inclusion of notifications within surveillance

Public health surveillance involves using different types of information to develop an overall picture of the burden of an infectious disease and its impacts on health and health services.

Surveillance for other vaccine preventable diseases often includes serological surveillance to monitor changes in immunity over time and by age group. However, notification data for Chickenpox will provide information related to the pattern of cases presenting to health services and how this changes over time.

Information for other health professionals

The requirement to notify suspicion of disease only relates to registered medical practitioners. The inclusion of chickenpox (varicella) to the list of notifiable diseases does not require specific changes to any existing clinical pathways where patients are assessed or managed by health professionals other than registered medical practitioners.