The Vaccine-Preventable Disease (VPD) Program’s mission is to monitor and raise awareness about occurrences of vaccine-preventable diseases by detecting cases and outbreaks, with a goal of supporting vaccination program outcomes in Washington State through equity-focused collaboration with public health and healthcare partnerships.
What we do
We serve and partner with Local Health Jurisdictions (LHJs) through offering support, resources, and consultation services including:
- Case investigations and contact tracing
- Clinical and surveillance epidemiology
- Outbreak and response guidance
- Testing at the Washington Public Health Laboratories (WA PHL)
- Providing disease-specifics trainings for LHJ partners
- Creating and maintaining VPD Disease Investigation Guidelines and internal protocols
- Developing or locating VPD resources for posting on the DOH website
Conditions we investigate
Our areas of disease expertise include:
- Acute Flaccid Myelitis (AFM) and Poliomyelitis
- Diphtheria and non-toxigenic Corynebacterium diphtheriae infections
- Haemophilus influenzae Invasive Disease (under age 5 years)
- Measles (also known as rubeola)
- Meningococcal disease
- Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children following COVID-19 (MIS-C)
- Mumps
- Pertussis (also known as whooping cough)
- Rubella
- Tetanus
- Varicella, also known as chickenpox (outbreaks and deaths)
Our Partners
Washington State Public Health Laboratories (Central Accessioning, Virology, Special Bacteriology/Reference Lab)
- Specimen testing and send outs
- Coordinating development of laboratory testing guidance
- Collaborative planning for onboarding of new tests and assays
- Potential vaccine adverse events
- Vaccination schedule
- Interpretation of disease data with vaccine coverage information
Center for Public Health Medicine and Veterinary Sciences
- Case consultations
- Response planning
- Collaboration on special projects and data analysis
CDC and laboratorians
- Work closely with these partners on national and regional VPD issues
- VPD case consultations and specimen and data submissions
Regional partners
- Oregon, California, Washington, Idaho, Colorado, Minnesota.
Contact us
Email the VPD program for more information (vpd-cde@doh.wa.gov).
Washington residents or healthcare providers should contact their local health jurisdictions for assistance.