County Reports Sharp Rise in Hepatitis C Cases

Ventura County residents continue to be healthier than most Southern Californians, but a trend suggests the number of local people infected with hepatitis C, a potentially deadly liver disease, has risen significantly, according to a county health study released Tuesday.

A total of 228 hepatitis C cases were reported in 1998, more than double the 95 cases documented the year before and up from just two incidents in 1996, according to the county Public Health Department. The 1998 figures, included in the agency’s Community Health Status Report, are the most recent available.

The annual report, considered an overview of the county’s general health, lists everything from the top 10 causes of death to how to immunize a child. The Board of Supervisors has not yet approved the study.

Dr. Robert Levin, who oversees the Public Health Department, said this area’s residents are healthier partly because they are more wealthy, as measured by the number of children under 18 living below the poverty level. People here have enough money to ensure better medical care.

“We don’t have as great a density of inner-city areas as other counties,” he said. “Inner cities have poverty, and poverty is related to both nutrition and access to medical care.”

But, like in most areas of the state, heart disease, cancer and strokes were the leading causes of death in Ventura County.

Authorities believe the sharp increase in the number of hepatitis C cases locally is partly because the county is testing for it, something that wasn’t done several years ago.

Barbara Spraktes-Wilkins, an epidemiologist with the Public Health Department, said physicians have become more aware of the blood disease, which is most often spread through needles and, in the past, through blood transfusions. Less commonly the disease is spread through sexual contact.

“It wasn’t even reported before 1996,” she said. “In 1995 it was called non-A, non-B hepatitis because they didn’t even know what the organism was.”

Oxnard, which registered 70 cases--more than any other city--tests more frequently, Spraktes-Wilkins said. And with a 1998 population of 156,000, Oxnard is also the county’s most populous city.

Hepatitis C kills about 10,000 Americans annually. It is a serious health risk because the majority of infections persist for decades without symptoms, slowly destroying the liver.

Among communicable diseases reported in Ventura County, sexually transmitted diseases are the most common.

And chlamydia is the most common sexually transmitted disease (STD), according to the study. In 1998, there were 980 cases of chlamydia, up 18% from 829 cases in 1997, and compared with 626 reported incidents in 1996.

“The increase is partly because people, especially young people, think HIV is not to be feared and that has emboldened them to not use barrier protection,” Levin said. “It is generally thought that there has been a decrease in sexual activity with teens, which means that even though there is less sexual activity, a lot more is unprotected.”

In 1998, most of the chlamydia cases--512--were detected among those age 20 to 29. The second highest group was those age 10 to 19, with 354 cases.

Other STDs noted in the study included gonorrhea, with 99 cases reported in 1998, and syphilis, 28 cases.

Although chlamydia is on the rise, Levin said officials continue to be concerned about the local incidence of AIDS.

As of August 1999 there had been 766 cases of AIDS reported in the county. Of those, 471 people had died. The number with the disease in 1998 was 708, and 48 of those cases were reported that year.

“People need to use protection,” said Levin. “They think they have found a cure because of the drugs people take, but the drugs only depress it for a few years, not for a lifetime.”