§ Mr. Simon CoombsTo ask the Secretary of State for Health, what information he has on the incidence of illness related to the organism, cryptosporidia; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. FreemanThe public health laboratory service's communicable disease surveillance centre first received reports of cryptosporidium infection from laboratories in England and Wales in 1983. Sixty-one reports were received that year. Since then annual totals have been 876 (1984), 1,874 (1985), 3,560 (1986), 3,277 (1987), 2,757488W (1988) and 633 in 1989 to the end of February. The increase from 1983 to 1986 reflects to a great extent increased reporting resulting from development of techniques to identify the organism in the laboratory and increasing awareness of the association of cryptosporidium with diarrhoeal illness. The figures for 1988 and 1989 (first eight weeks) are provisional.