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Doug Mormann, director of the La Crosse County Health Department, said the 2005 annual report shows some improvement in the number of sexually transmitted diseases — 355 chlamydia cases in 2005 compared with 396 in 2004 and 46 gonorrhea cases in 2005 compared with 63 in 2004.
Syphilis cases can range from none to four each year, Mormann said, but last year the county reported one case.
“We seemed to have made some progress with sexually transmitted diseases, but the numbers are still higher than five or six years ago,” Mormann said. “We still have much work to do.”
The report, which will be submitted to the Health and Human Services Board on Tuesday, shows a huge drop in Lyme disease cases, from 231 in 2004 to 131 in 2005. But Mormann said he has his doubts about the numbers.
“There is a huge disagreement right now about how Lyme is identified and counted as a case,” Mormann said. “We’ve had a lot of Lyme disease, and I doubt our cases would decrease that much.”
He said the number of Lyme disease cases almost doubled from 2003 to 2004.
La Crosse County had a slight jump in AIDS cases in 2005, from three in 2004 to five last year. The number of HIV cases went up from two in 2004 to three in 2005.
Dave Geske, vector control officer with the health department, said the La Crosse area has averaged five to six La Crosse encephalitis cases a year for the past several years. In La Crosse County, the number of La Crosse encephalitis cases decreased from four in 2004 to one in 2005. La Crosse County still has not reported a human West Nile case.
La Crosse County, like other communities in Wisconsin, had a huge outbreak of pertussis or whooping cough in 2004 as part of a resurgence of the disease across the country.
The county reported 45 pertussis cases in 2004. The number of pertussis cases dropped to 20 in 2005, with most cases reported early in the year as part of the statewide outbreak.
In 2005, no chicken pox cases were reported for the second straight year in La Crosse County.
La Crosse County moved up to 16th in the 2005 rankings of the healthiest counties in Wisconsin. The county was 26th in 2003. What hurt La Crosse County rankings were high smoking and binge drinking rates, Mormann said. “We’re getting healthier, but we have a lot to work on,” he said.
The health department continues to work on healthy living initiatives, emphasizing nutrition, physical activity and childhood obesity, he said.
“We’ll also continue to work on public health preparedness for a significant emergency such as an influenza pandemic,” Mormann said.
Terry Rindfleisch can be reached at trindfleisch@lacrossetribune.com, or (608) 791-8227
