Mind, Body & Spirit: Ills of our society - the Top Ten

by Bert & Eva Ricacho*

The 1999 Health Statistics showed that more than 28,000 die in NZ each year, the number of males at 50.4% being just slightly higher than females. The No. 1 killer group of diseases is the heart diseases, including cerebrovascular accident (stroke), accounting for more than 30% of the mortality, and it looks like women are less adept than men in managing affairs of the hearts.

Cancer ranks second, with lung and large bowel cancers as the most common. There are more female breast cancers than male prostate cancers.

The third major cause of death are the pneumonias and influenza (flu), the only communicable diseases in the top ten. As the etiologic agents may be present in the air we breathe and therefore, hard to contain in one place, these respiratory diseases are the hardest to control in the community and in the hospital setting. While pneumonia can be caused by many types of germs, from viruses to bacteria and fungi, influenza is caused by the influenza virus only but which can mutate to a new form which the present population may not have the immunity. The new mutant is most dangerous when it results from the combination of an animal flu strain from chickens, birds or pigs with a usual human strain.

There is almost an equal number of deaths (350+ each) in males and females due to diabetes mellitus. More than 80,000 individuals have been diagnosed positive for diabetes, more common among Maoris and PIs.

Fatalities as a consequence of motor vehicle crashes is more in males (349) and much less in females at 184. Does this imply that it pays to be on the weaker sex side?

Unfortunately, mortality as a result of suicide is significantly high at 500+, 75% occurring in males. Something to be happy with is the considerably low deaths due to homicide or other intentional injuries at 75 per year, one reason why NZ is quite attractive to would-be immigrants wanting to break away from places of high crime rates.

NZ is also now on its 12th year of meningococcal disease epidemic, meaning that the number of cases of about 500 per year is significantly higher than the usual number experienced before the epidemic. Death is usually ascribed to blood poisoning or inflammation of the meninges. The cause of the epidemic in New Zealand is somehow different from the organism encountered in the USA or UK which are easily preventable by vaccines. The vaccine currently used in the massive immunization programme was developed in collaboration with other countries where similar strains are found.

Not in the list of course are the social ills likewise prevalent in our community. Although statistics may not be available to document their occurrences, it is inevitable  that we sometimes fall under its wrath and experience a similar form of distress or discomfort. We hope a modern Edward Jenner shall rise one day and develop a vaccine similar to that one which banished the dreadful smallpox from the surface of the earth.

*Bert is a lecturer in Microbiology while Eva is a BSc Public Health graduate - Ed

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