Thieves stole nearly 200,000 account records from Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield last week, while Johns Hopkins University Hospital announced it had lost more than 80,000 patients' files as part of a larger breach that occurred earlier this month, according to media reports.

Healthcare provider WellPoint stated last week that thieves had stolen backup tapes containing records on 196,000 customers from a Massachusetts-based third-party handler of insurance claims, according to a United Press International report. The theft, which happened in November, affects customers in four states--Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio and Virginia--but the information has not yet been misused, a WellPoint spokesman told UPI.

The data theft follows a significant breach earlier in February announced by Johns Hopkins University. Backup tapes containing information on 135,000 workers and patients was lost, the university told reporters. While eight of the nine backup tapes contained worker information, the ninth contained 83,000 record on patients, including their names, race, sex, date of birth, medical-record numbers and their parents' names, according to media reports.

Incidents of data breaches continue to rise. In 2006, more than 48 million records were exposed, including the personal details of 800,000 students, workers and faculty at the University of California, Los Angeles. This year, the situation has not noticeably improved: In January, retail giant TJX Companies announced that online thieves had stolen transaction information on an unspecified--but large by most estimates--number of customers.

Despite the breaches, at least one study has documented a decrease in identity fraud.