D. Infectious Diseases

Public Health law requires the reporting of the diagnosis of certain infectious or communicable diseases to the State. The State’s Division of Communicable Disease Control is responsible for gathering this data. While the State reports annually on the top infectious diseases in California, the most recent report of all infectious diseases by county is 1993. Table 4.16 compares the top infectious diseases in California as compared to Imperial County.

There are substantial differences in the types of infectious and communicable diseases diagnosed in Imperial County as compared to the State of California. Of note are the much higher rates of diseases associated with poor hygiene, such as Salmonella, Shigellosis, Meningitis and Hepatitis in Imperial County as compared with the State rates.

Tuberculosis is also diagnosed at a much higher rate in Imperial County than in the rest of the State. A summary of the number of cases and rate per 100,000 is presented in Table S4.16.1

In 1996, the ages of persons diagnosed with tuberculosis differed in Imperial and California.

In Imperial County, 1996, 90% of the cases of Tuberculosis were patients of Hispanic ethnicity compared to 36% for the State. In 1994, nearly 74% of the cases were diagnosed and treated by the Imperial County Health Department with 26% being seen by private physicians. Although a ZIP code distribution of cases is not available, a Health Department contact indicated that over 80% of the diagnosed cases they saw were from Calexico with the remainder of the cases scattered throughout the County.

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