Diseases of Military Interest

Many diseases impact the military population and detract from military readiness. Efforts to minimize the impacts include:

1. Ensuring awareness of local (endemic) and emerging diseases world-wide. Military personnel/CAC holders are encouraged to use the military’s Health Surveillance Explorer External Link to identify location-specific disease and illness threats.

2. Requiring and providing effective interventions such as training to avoid or reduce exposures, barriers to prevent exposures, and vaccinations. Examples:

Procedures and training to reduce risk of heat illness and cold weather injuries
Preventing insects bites through use of military permethrin-treated uniforms
Military vaccine requirements for threats in each Area of Operation (AOR)

3. Reporting and Surveillance of medical data for disease and illnesses to identify clusters or outbreaks External Link among Service members and beneficiaries, determine if prevention tactics are working, and prioritize medical and prevention efforts.

4. Early recognition, diagnosis and treatment. The military contributes to improvements in disease diagnostic tools and treatments External Link .

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Legionnaires’ disease, a type of pneumonia caused by Legionella bacteria, is caused by breathing in water mist containing Legionella bacteria. Most young healthy persons do not get seriously ill. The DOD prevents occurrence of this disease with proper maintenance and operation of its water systems, including building cooling towers.
Updated epidemiological surveillance guidance for military public health professionals to assist with investigating and reporting reportable medical events – includes the DHA Communicable Disease Toolkit (Jun 2024)
Medical Surveillance Monthly Report – this monthly peer-reviewed journal of the DHA describes the incidence, distribution, impact, or trends of illness and injuries among U.S. Armed Forces members and other beneficiaries
HPV vaccines critical for young adults (Service members) to reduce cancers
Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) – new vaccines in 2023

News Articles:

Military health experts monitor diseases transmitted by bugs (Jul 2024)
Show others you care by testing for STIs (Apr 2024)
Syphilis: A rising threat among military Service members (Sep 2023)
Military public health experts fight against disease (Aug 2023)
Preventing infection by monitoring disease cases (Oct 2022)
Antibiotics use can lead to ineffective drugs (2022)

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is an outbreak?

An outbreak is defined External Link as more cases of a disease than expected in a specific location over a specific time period. This can be a few cases or hundreds depending on the disease, time and location and population.

How does the military monitor these disease and illnesses?

Military surveillance data is primarily collected from the Disease Reporting Surveillance internet system, or DRSi, which military medical facilities must use to document all cases that meet military Reportable Medical Event, or RME, criteria.

The military RMEs are specific medical conditions that must be reported to the military's DRSi system within 1 to 7 days for health surveillance purposes. The military's current list of 71 RMEs includes the CDC’s “Notifiable Diseases" External Link which are priority public health concerns because they are known as communicable diseases that are spread between people, from animals to people or from contact with surfaces or from food or water sources. The military RMEs also include non-communicable military-unique concerns such as heat- and cold weather-related injuries, and pediatric blood lead results.

RME cases are defined as suspected, probable, or confirmed based on specified definition criteria that can include symptoms as well as laboratory data. RME clinical guidance ensures consistent reporting and helps local level contact-tracing efforts:

DHA Communicable Disease Toolkit (CDT), 2024

Armed Forces Reportable Medical Events, 2022 (Health.mil)

What routine military disease surveillance reports are available?

While data for diseases such as COVID and sexually transmitted infections are not publicly accessible, military disease surveillance reports are publicly available for:

MSMR Updates for topics published a similar month each year, such as:

Heat illnesses, rhabdomyolysis, hyponatremia reports – March, April
Cold weather injury – October, November
Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) – September, other
See MSMR index for others

Acute Respiratory Diseases
Seasonal Influenza
Vector-Borne Diseases (includes the tick-borne illnesses Lyme disease and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, and mosquito-borne diseases malaria and dengue)
Weather-Related Conditions (e.g., Heat Illness, April-September; and, Cold-Weather Injury, October-March)

What happens when new diseases are identified?

Health surveillance and outbreak investigations can help with the identification of new or novel diseases not previously included in routine disease monitoring. For more details, see this DHA Factsheet: What is a Novel Respiratory Virus? (Sep 2024)

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Frequently Asked Questions​

​What is an out​​​break?