Prime Minister John Key has defended the Government's record on tackling infectious diseases after a report found a dramatic increase in people hospitalised by them over the last 20 years.
Research by the University of Otago, Wellington, found hospitalisations from infectious diseases increased by 51% over the 20-year period 1989 to 2008.
The researchers say they were "taken aback" by the size of the increase because they expected to see a steady decline.
Maori and Pacific peoples are more than twice as likely as the European population to be hospitalised with a serious infectious disease, according to the findings published today in the international medical journal The Lancet.
And those living in the most deprived neighbourhoods have almost three times the risk compared with those living in the most affluent areas.
Key says he is concerned by the figures and that is why the Government has acted.
"That's why the Government's put more money into rheumatic fever. It's why we've been insulating so many homes around New Zealand. It's why we're trying to lift people out of poverty and get them back into work because more often than not if they're in poverty, they may well be trapped on welfare," he said.
The researchers cited rheumatic fever, saying it has has almost disappeared as a childhood disease in Western Europe and North America, but is still a serious threat for Maori and Pacific children in New Zealand, causing heart disease and early death in adulthood.
Key said it is difficult to say when the figures will improve but he thinks the country can address rheumatic fever "relatively quickly".
"Although I hasten to add that's likely to be a symptom of very poor housing. So you need to go back to address the housing issues rather than just putting money into rheumatic fever."
He said he hopes the next survey's results will be better, "but I think we all need to acknowledge that these levels of deprivation have been apparent in New Zealand for quite a long period of time and we need to work on addressing those."
Over-crowding
Co-author of the report, Professor Philippa Howden-Chapman, says there is a need to develop interventions that address major causes of poor health, including additional strategies to reduce poverty, lower household crowding, and improve access to immunisation and other health services.
"Fortunately we know that it's possible to reduce these distressing diseases - lowering household crowding is the first step. The government should be motivated to act, as prevention will save expensive hospital costs," Howden-Chapman said.
In an accompanying editorial in The Lancet, Stephen Lim and Ali Mokdad from the University of Washington wrote: "The health of indigenous people in New Zealand has historically been poorer than the rest of the population and these findings suggest that a rising burden of infectious disease may be leading to a widening of this gap.
"Urgent action must be taken to reverse this trend."
Infectious diseases accounted for 27% of all acute hospitalisations in New Zealand between 2004 and 2008. By contrast hospitalisations from non-infectious diseases have increased by only 7%.
Lead investigator, Associate Professor Michael Baker, says the poor are over-represented among those ending up in hospital with infectious diseases.
"Fundamentally what this new research reveals is that the poorest sections of our community are bearing the brunt of an increasing burden of infectious disease, with children and older people in particular ending up in hospital; this is especially so for Maori and Pacific peoples," he says.
For children under five years, infectious diseases now account for 64% of acute admissions for Maori children and 68% for Pacific children, compared with 55% for European and other children.
"Because Maori and Pacific populations tend to be over-represented in the poorest suburbs there is a multiplier effect regarding infectious disease risk. This has seen a 77% increase in hospitalisations for Maori and a 112% increase for Pacific peoples from the most deprived areas over the last two decades," Baker said.
Taken aback
Baker says he was "taken aback" by the size of the increase in hospitalisations from infectious diseases.
"What we expected to see was a steady decline in serious infectious diseases and a rise in admissions for chronic diseases, such as cancer and diabetes, which is the expected pattern for a developed country."
"Instead we found infectious diseases had risen far faster than chronic diseases. New Zealand now has the double burden of rising rates of both infectious and chronic diseases".
This first-ever study of serious infectious diseases across an entire country and over an extended period was based on analysis of five million overnight admissions to New Zealand hospitals over a 20-year period. It tracked trends across major population groups according to age, ethnicity and socio-economic status.
It found that most categories of infectious disease have risen, with the main contributions coming from increases in respiratory, skin and gastrointestinal infections.
The rise in rates was not even over this period. The largest increase in infectious diseases was in the 1990s, then some improvement in 2001-05, followed by a more recent increase. The rise in the 1990s coincided with a period of rapidly rising income and wealth inequalities associated with major restructuring of the New Zealand economy.
"All New Zealanders pay the price of rising infectious diseases. There are those who are directly affected by these infections. But these contagious diseases affect all sectors of society," Baker said.
The increased rates are adding 17,000 hospitalisations a year
and tens of millions of dollars in avoidable health care costs, he
said.
Latest NZ News Video
-
ONE News Minute 9am update: May 26 (1:00)
-
Kids cough up $14m for Government (1:50)
-
Education ministry 'barbaric' (1:55)
