Disease’s infection rate highest in Ireland

A DISEASE that affects mainly young children and can be spread by drinking contaminated water had higher infection rates in Ireland than in 29 other European countries in 2009, according to a new report.

Cryptosporidiosis, an infection caused by a parasite that infects cattle and other domestic animals, infected 10 people per 100,000 in Ireland in 2009, compared to an overall confirmed case rate across 30 countries of 2.74 per 100,000.

The parasite which causes the disease — cryptosporidium parvum — has elements that survive well in the environment and human infection arises from “a range of environmental contacts, including contaminated water and care centres for young children”, according to the Annual Epidemiological Report 2011 of Eurosurveillance, an online scientific journal that monitors the surveillance and control of communicable diseases.

Britain recorded the second-highest rate in 2009 of crytosporidiosis, at 9.3 per 100,000. It is mainly reported in children under five.

Earlier this year more than 1,000 people in the north Cork village of Castletownroche had to boil water due to a cryptosporidium outbreak. The public drinking supply in parts of the west of Ireland, including Ennis, Co Clare and parts of Galway, was contaminated for extended periods between 2007 and 2009.

Ireland also recorded the highest confirmed case rate for a potentially fatal disease know as STEC/VTEC caused by infection with verocytoxin, a strain of the usually harmless bacterium Escherichia coli (e coli).

The main hosts for these strains are cattle. Transmission occurs primarily by eating undercooked infected beef and, secondarily, from person-to-person.

In 2009, the average notification rate of VTEC across 30 European countries was 0.86 cases per 100,000 population. Ireland had a notification rate of 5.33 per 100,000.

More than half (52%) of reported confirmed human VTEC infections in 2009 were associated with a strain called VTEC O157 which can lead to a severe gut infection with bloody diarrhoea and can be fatal. In 2009, 80% of confirmed 0157 cases were reported in Ireland and Britain.

Ireland also fared badly when it came to:

* Meningococcal disease, an uncommon but potentially fatal systemic bacterial disease, appearing as meningitis or septicaemia, with infants and children most at risk. Ireland and Britain reported the highest rates of confirmed cases with 3.01 per 100,000 and 1.93 per 100,000 respectively.

* After Bulgaria, Ireland had the second-highest confirmed measles case rate of 2.31 per 100,000 compared to an average rate of 0.84 per 100,000 across 30 countries. The report warns that countries need to increase vaccination coverage to eliminate measles.

* Mumps, another vaccine-preventable viral infection, had an average confirmed case rate of 3.2 per 100,000 across 30 countries, but the highest confirmed case rates were reported from Ireland at 31.0 per 100,000.

Ireland fared better when it came to MRSA, with the occurrence decreasing.