Final answer:
True, notifiable diseases may go unreported when patients recover without confirmed diagnoses, due to asymptomatic cases or non-mandatory reporting for certain STIs. The CDC and other health agencies depend on these reports for tracking and managing public health risks, as published in resources like the MMWR.
Step-by-step explanation:
It is true that sometimes notifiable diseases are not reported to the local health department because patients recover without a diagnosis being confirmed. This can occur for several reasons. Diseases that are asymptomatic or subclinical, such as genital herpes, may not be reported because individuals are unaware they are infected. Further complicating reporting, some sexually transmitted infections (STIs) like chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis are notifiable and must be reported, but others like genital herpes, genital warts, and trichomoniasis are not. This makes obtaining accurate data on the prevalence of these STIs challenging due to social taboos, inconsistency of symptoms, and lack of mandatory reporting. Additionally, some diseases have re-emerged as public health threats after being dormant, like tuberculosis in urban centers with high numbers of immunocompromised people.
Notifiable diseases are important for tracking diseases and studying epidemiology, with agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) relying on this data, published in resources like the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), to inform health-care professionals and the public about health risks. Consequently, when diseases are not reported, it hinders the ability of public health officials to monitor and respond to outbreaks effectively.