Guidance

International Health Regulations National Focal Point: international communications for contact tracing and other public health responses

Updated 3 October 2024

Scope

This page provides guidance about the role of the UK International Health Regulations (IHR) National Focal Point (NFP) with regard to communicating with public health colleagues in other World Health Organization (WHO) member states about public health events (mainly infectious diseases, but this also applies for events involving non-infectious health threats), and what information is required for that communication. Please see International Health Regulations 2005: UK National Focal Point on GOV.UK for information about other functions of the UK NFP.

Why communicate with other member states

The UK NFP may need to communicate with other member states for a number of reasons, including the following:

• an outbreak of infectious disease in the UK territory, in which residents of another country have been involved and are about to return home; these individuals may require follow-up or treatment
• an outbreak of infectious disease in the UK territory, in which individuals involved have travelled out of the UK territory before they could be contacted; these individuals may require follow-up or treatment
• contact tracing for infectious diseases reported on an international flight arriving in another country (including connecting flights) – this would apply to tuberculosis, invasive group A streptococcus (iGAS) or measles for example, and may apply to other infectious diseases and modes of international travel depending on the circumstances
• contact tracing and public health actions in other member states following detection of a case or contact with recent travel history – for example for the follow-up of cases, close contacts or any implicated settings
• transfer of medical information in order to provide ongoing clinical care for individuals travelling from the UK territory to another member state or vice versa, for example for tuberculosis

The UK NFP may also be contacted by other member states regarding situations involving cases, close contacts or settings in the UK.

What information we need to provide to other member states

The UK NFP may be contacted by local or national public health colleagues. To contact the UK NFP, email IHRNFP@ukhsa.gov.uk, providing a description of the event and including the information below:

Case details:

• case name
• case contact information (address, telephone, email)
• date of birth
• onset of symptoms
• is the likely case microbiologically confirmed? (please give test results and date where available)

Travel details (please include inbound and outbound travel as well as any connecting flights):

• date of travel
• airline
• flight number
• start and end points
• seat number of the case (if available)
• country or countries of travel
• name and address of accommodation

Details of any close contacts:

• name of close contact
• close contact phone number, email address and place of residence

The UK NFP may request additional information on a case-by-case basis. For outbreaks where there are a number of non-UK nationals involved, the following information may be requested:

• organism involved
• setting of the outbreak and location in the UK
• number of cases/deaths
• action taken so far by those leading on event in UK
• how many people from overseas are involved in the UK
• contact details (email address) for the person leading the investigation in the UK – this may be shared with public health colleagues in other countries in certain circumstances if direct communication is needed

The UK NFP can also be contacted by phone: +44 (0) 20 8327 6260.

Please note that when contacting by phone, you will be asked to provide a follow-up email to IHRNFP@ukhsa.gov.uk with the information outlined above.

If you are sharing PII from an NHS email account, please send this to phe.tmhs@nhs.net

How the UK NFP communicates with other member states

The UK NFP will share details of the event with the NFP of the relevant country. Any sensitive information such as PII is shared via a secure route. The UK NFP will facilitate further communication with the NFP of the relevant country as appropriate, and feed back the information received to the relevant teams in the UK for any follow-up.

Once the information is received by the NFP of the relevant country, that country will manage the situation according to its own policies and procedures, with further communication with the UK NFP as necessary.