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NOTE: A surveillance case definition is a set of uniform criteria used to define a disease for public health surveillance. Surveillance case definitions enable public health officials to classify and count cases consistently across reporting jurisdictions. Surveillance case definitions are not intended to be used by healthcare providers for making a clinical diagnosis or determining how to meet an individual patient’s health needs.

CSTE Position Statement(s)

  • 09-ID-31

Clinical Description

A sexually transmitted disease characterized by painful genital ulceration and inflammatory inguinal adenopathy. The disease is caused by infection with Haemophilus ducreyi.

Laboratory Criteria For Diagnosis

Isolation of H. ducreyi from a clinical specimen

Case Classification

Probable

A clinically compatible case with both a) no evidence of Treponema pallidum infection by darkfield microscopic examination of ulcer exudate or by a serologic test for syphilis performed greater than or equal to 7 days after onset of ulcers and b) either a clinical presentation of the ulcer(s) not typical of disease caused by herpes simplex virus (HSV) or a culture negative for HSV.

Confirmed

A clinically compatible case that is laboratory confirmed

Comments

The 1996 case definition appearing on this page was re-published in the 2009 CSTE position statement 09-ID-31. Thus, the 1996 and 2010 versions of the case definition are identical.

Related Case Definition(s)