The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) describes how hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) and related hantavirus infections are tracked nationally. This page highlights structural points from CDC’s surveillance overview rather than repeating cumulative counts published elsewhere on CDC’s data pages.
National notifiability
CDC states that hantavirus disease is a nationally notifiable condition: health departments report cases through agreed national channels so CDC can monitor where illness occurs, how it might be prevented, and which groups are most affected. CDC also notes that reporting rules for who must report and when vary by state or territory.
Case definitions and reporting categories
On its surveillance overview, CDC explains that the National Notifiable Disease Surveillance System (NNDSS) provides linked case definitions for hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) and for non-HPS hantavirus infection. Those definition pages are labeled 2015 on CDC’s case-definition service. Surveillance definitions standardize how public health officials classify and count cases; CDC explicitly notes they are not written for clinicians to diagnose individual patients.
Why this matters for readers
Understanding reporting rules helps interpret official tables and year-to-year changes: revisions to case definitions, laboratory capacity, and which clinical syndromes meet reporting criteria can all influence what appears in public surveillance summaries without implying a sudden change in real-world risk by itself.
Research note
This summary was written from CDC’s “Hantavirus Case Definition and Reporting” page on 7 May 2026. CDC may update that page; confirm current language at the link below.