The Ministry of Health has established indicator and event-based surveillance systems for monitoring communicable diseases. Events that are a risk to public health are monitored through channels such as compulsory infectious diseases reporting under the Infectious Diseases Act, or anecdotal reporting by doctors of outbreaks or cases. The event-based surveillance system also includes the Severe Infectious Diseases of Possible Infectious Cause system which investigates cases of severe illness (deaths, ICU admissions) among persons 1-49 years of age for novel infectious diseases in the major public hospitals, and the monitoring of notifications from the public which are thoroughly investigated if a common link is identified. Indicator based surveillance is based on data from mandatory notifications as well as reports from sentinel sites. The sentinel surveillance network comprises of Emergency Departments of all public hospitals, selected private primary care clinics and all polyclinics (large public outpatient clinics) located island wide. Both disease-specific and syndromic data are analysed and monitored. In addition, virological surveillance (e.g. virus typing) is routinely carried out for viruses such as enteroviruses by the National Public Health Laboratory. Surveillance data are shared and used to guide risk assessments, research, educational materials and public health operational plans.