Countywide : Intestinal Infection Cases on the Rise

Ventura County recorded 67 cases of the intestinal infection giardia during the first nine months of this year, almost as many as the 72 cases recorded in all of 1989, the county’s top public health official said Wednesday.

But Dr. Larry Dodds, director of public health, said the rise in recorded cases could be due to improved diagnosis and reporting, not to an actual increase in the occurrence of giardia. He said that many of the reported cases have occurred in Camarillo, where Pleasant Valley Hospital was first in the county to have a sophisticated test for the disease.

“There’s been an increase in cases all over the county,” Dodds said. “I think it’s partly due to physicians looking for it and detecting it.”

The disease’s proper name is giardiasis--giardia being the name of the parasite that causes it. Travelers often bring it back from the tropics, but it is increasingly more common in developed countries, according to the American Medical Assn.’s Encyclopedia of Medicine.

The parasite is carried in the stool and is spread by improper hand-washing or through contaminated water or unwashed food.

Dodds said the disease often turns up in day-care centers and mental institutions where toilet training may be lacking.

Symptoms include violent attacks of diarrhea, gas, abdominal pain and nausea.

It will usually clear up without treatment, but drugs can relieve the symptoms and prevent the spread of infection.

“It’s not a life-threatening thing,” Dodds said.

“It’s just unpleasant.”