Appendix 2: Glossary

Clinical waste

Clinical waste includes wastes arising from medical, nursing, dental, veterinary, laboratory, pharmaceutical, podiatry, tattooing, body piercing, brothels, emergency services, blood banks, mortuary practices and other similar practices, and wastes generated in health care facilities or other facilities during the investigation or treatment of patients or research projects.

For more information, see Clinical and related waste – Operational guidance

National High Security Quarantine Laboratory (NHSQL)

The NHSQL is a physical containment level 4 facility designed for microorganisms that require the maximum level of containment.¹

Orthoebolavirus (genus name – formally Ebolavirus)²

Orthomarburgvirus (genus name – formally Marburgvirus)²

Surveillance case definition

CDNA surveillance case definitions should not be used for clinical diagnostic purposes.

Confirmed case

A confirmed case requires laboratory definitive evidence only.

Laboratory definitive evidence requires confirmation by the Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory (VIDRL), Melbourne or the Special Pathogens Laboratory, CDC, Atlanta or the Special Pathogens Laboratory, National Institute of Virology, Johannesburg for:

• isolation of a specific virus

OR

• detection of a specific virus by nucleic acid testing or antigen detection assay

OR

• IgG seroconversion or a significant increase in antibody level or a fourfold or greater rise in titre to a specific virus.

Suspected case

A suspected case has compatible clinical evidence AND epidemiological evidence.

Clinical evidence requires a compatible clinical illness as determined by an infectious disease physician. Common presenting complaints are fever, myalgia and prostration, with headache, pharyngitis, conjunctival injection, flushing and gastrointestinal symptoms. This may be complicated by spontaneous bleeding, petechiae, hypotension and perhaps shock, oedema and neurologic involvement.

Epidemiological evidence requires:

• history of travel to an endemic/epidemic area within nine days (Marburg), 13 days (Crimean-Congo) or 21 days (Lassa, Ebola) of illness onset. Filoviruses are endemic in Sub-Saharan Africa, Lassa in Western Africa, Crimean-Congo in Africa and the Middle East to West China

OR

• contact with a confirmed case

OR

• exposure to viral haemorrhagic fever (VHF) infected blood or tissues.

Notes

¹ Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory. (2025). High Security/Quarantine (VIDRL)

²Biedenkopf, N., Bukreyev, A., Chandran, K., Di Paola, N., & Formenty, P. B. H. (2023). Renaming of genera Ebolavirus and Marburgvirus to Orthoebolavirus and Orthomarburgvirus, respectively, and introduction of binomial species names within family Filoviridae. Archives of Virology, 168(1)