M.S. ‘more prevalent in Otago’

Press, 21 May 1987, Page 31

M.S. ‘more prevalent in Otago’

PA Wellington Multiple sclerosis is nearly three times more prevalent in Otago and Southland than in Waikato and three times . more prevalent in women in those areas than men, according to a recent study. An article in the latest “Medical Journal” says New Zealand has even standards of health care

and there is no ready explanation for this geographical difference. But there is often an increasing prevalence of the disease with increasing distance from the equator and this is supported in New Zealand, it says. The study compared the prevalence of multiple sclerosis in the Waikato

Hospital Board area and in Otago and Southland. It found the prevalence of the disease in the south was 69 in 100,000 people compared with 24 in 100,000 people in the Waikato area, almost three times greater. No Maori was found to have the disease in either area yet Maoris comprise 15.7 per cent of the

Waikato population and 2.4 per cent of the southern region. The study had expected to find 11.7 cases in Maoris. Multiple sclerosis was most common in the 40 to 50 age-group in Waikato and in the 50 to 60 agegroup in the southern area. In both regions the prevalence in women was

three times greater than in men.

The article says that on the basis of deaths and hospital admissions in 1972 it had been suggested that the disease was more common in the South Island than in the North Island but since then studies had been inconclusive as to such a geographical relationship.