17 cases of orf viral infection

Press, 27 April 1983, Page 3

17 cases of orf viral infection

Seventeen cases of ’Orf viral infection, caught from sheep, were reported to the Health Department last week.

Dr W. A. Malpress, Medical Officer of Health for Christchurch, said yesterday that usually several hundred cases of orf a year were reported. The department was concerned that the number did not decrease in spite of better hygiene standards at freezing works. The 17 cases reported last week were about three times the usual number. Orf, a skin disease, is carried on the wool and skin of sheep, farmers and freezing workers being the most likely to catch it. The virus enters the body through cuts, blisters, scratches, and burns, and the sufferer gets an irritating sore which starts as a red spot The

spot grows, becomes weepy, and eventually develops a scab.

The Health Department warns that people handling sheep or sheepskin should guard against orf by covering any broken skin with a waterproof dressing. The department also heard last week of one case of meningitis, nine cases of the food poisoning disease, Campylobacter, two of salmonella, one of hepatitis, and three of tuberculosis.

The meningitis sufferer was a child, who was admitted to Christchurch Hospital with the disease, and discharged after a few days. The illness was not caught in a thermal pool but by bacterial infection.

So far this year, 89 cases of Campylobacter have been reported to the department, about four or five times as many as usual.