Communicable disease in New Zealand

Communicable diseases remain a major problem in New Zealand; one which often only comes to the attention of management when an outbreak occurs and health care dollars are required for disease control. Hepatitis B and rheumatic fever remain the two diseases that place New Zealand in the developing nation league. Overall, the impact on mortality is low (only 5% in the 1-14 year age group) as is the impact on potential years of life lost. Morbidity figures are not known with any degree of accuracy as they are dependent on a notification system acknowledged to be deficient and hospital discharge data which include only a fraction of cases for a few serious diseases. The main preventive action hinges on the childhood immunisation programme which has undergone recent change. The true impact of environmental hygiene measures, health promotion and education has not been evaluated.