Diseases

Each week the Orange County Public Health Department reports to the state the incidence of various notifiable diseases in the county. Here's a selection of these afflictions for March, the most recent month for which information is available, and how the first three months of 1991 compare to those of last year: NUMBER OF CASES 1991 1990 Year to Date March Year to Year to % Change Disease 1991 Date Date 1990-91 Acquired immune deficiency 43 116 133 -12.

The shift by early Native Americans from a hunter-gatherer culture to an agricultural community produced a sharp growth in population, but it also led to an increase in infectious and nutritional diseases, according to anthropologist George J. Armelagos of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Armelagos has been studying the Dickson Mound, which is located in Illinois near the confluence of the Spoon and Illinois Rivers.

Gov. Gray Davis on Tuesday ordered two state agencies to look for weaknesses in the state's efforts to block the spread of two animal diseases that have hurt the agriculture industry in Europe. Davis told Food and Agriculture Secretary William Lyons Jr. and Emergency Services Director Dallas Jones to make recommendations within 30 days on better ways to prevent the spread of "mad cow" disease and foot-and-mouth disease. California has sent four veterinarians to Europe to work with the U.S.

Costly diseases, many of them related to obesity and smoking, are more prevalent among aging Americans than their European peers and add as much as $100 billion to $150 billion a year in treatment costs to the U.S. healthcare tab, a new study says. The study by researchers at Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health found higher rates of several serious diseases -- including cancer, diabetes and heart disease -- among Americans 50 and older as compared with aging Europeans.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that climate change and pandemic disease threatened international security as much as terrorism and that Britain must radically improve its defenses. Brown listed the greatest threats to Britain's peace as "war, terrorism and now climate change, disease and poverty -- threats which redefine national security." Officials estimate that a flu-type pandemic in Britain could cost as many as 750,000 lives, according to a report commissioned by Brown. It also says major coastal floods probably would result in a military evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people.

Health workers are on the verge of eradicating Guinea worm disease in what would be just the second time in history that a disease has been wiped from the planet, the Carter Center said Friday. Cheap interventions such as hygiene education, using larvicides to kill the worm and distributing inexpensive cloths to help filter parasites from drinking water have cut the infection rate by 99%, the center said. Fewer than 5,000 cases of Guinea worm disease, also known as dracunculiasis, remain in Mali, Niger, Ghana, Nigeria, Sudan and Ethiopia, the Atlanta-based center said.

Jeffrey Paga's college pals had big plans for the evening, and those plans didn't include hanging around the dorm room with their heads stuck in a book. But Paga, who had felt fine all day, suddenly wasn't in the mood to join them. He felt the flu coming on and figured he'd better stay in, take some over-the-counter medicine and hit the sack early.

A drug used in organ transplants appears of benefit in treating a debilitating bowel condition known as Crohn's disease when conventional therapy has failed, a group of Danish researchers report. "We conclude that cyclosporine has a beneficial therapeutic effect in patients with active Crohn's disease and resistance to or intolerance of corticosteroids," the synthetic hormones used in the conventional treatment, the scientists wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Glaucoma is an eye disease that can cause blindness. If caught early, however, it can usually be controlled. But because glaucoma often has no symptoms, it's important to see your eye doctor for regular exams. The disease usually begins when pressure builds up in the eye, which can damage the optic nerve. If the nerve is damaged, it cannot send messages to the brain. There are two main kinds of glaucoma: * Open-angle glaucoma is the most common kind, occurring slowly as people age.