Report of the Department of Health / New Zealand.

  • New Zealand. Department of Health.
Date:
[1957]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Report of the Department of Health / New Zealand. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    19/116 (page 19)
    Recently a small monthly supply of vaccine has been offered to us by the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories, Melbourne. This vaccine will be used in the first place to immunise hospital staffs and pregnant women. On receipt of further large supplies the immunisation of children will be proceeded with. Infective Hepatitis This disease was made notifiable in April 1956, and during the eight months following 570 cases were notified. It is certain that the disease is a very common one, and is likely to become the predominating acute infectious notifiable disease. Much still remains uncertain concerning the epidemiology of this disease, although infection is known to leave the body in the faeces in much the same way as happens in poliomyelitis. As in the latter disease some doubt exists as to practical and effective measures that will limit its spread. An extensive water-borne outbreak of infective hepatitis occurred in a country school and has been described* by Dr C. E. Anderson, Deputy Medical Officer of Health, Auckland. Between October 1956 and January 1957. 167 cases were notified, the majority of patients being between the ages of five and seventeen, and all attending the same school. Investigation showed that the infection was water-borne, and was caused by pollution from the school septic tank gaining access to a faulty underground tank connected with the school water supply. An outbreak involving 16 children at another school was thought to be connected with the flooding of the playground with septic-tank effluent. At a mental institution for children 40 persons contracted hepatitis. The patients included 28 inmates, 7 nurses, and 5 male attendants. It has become customary' to regard a low typhoid-fever rate as an index of a good sanitary environment. This may only indicate that the typhoid-carrier rate is low, and the increasing incidence of such faecal diseases as hepatitis and bacillary dysentery are perhaps a better indi¬ cation that much still remains to be done to achieve and maintain a sanitary environment. Diphtheria A new record was achieved with 31 cases only for the year. Twelve of these occurred in one health district, while in seven health districts there were no cases. The majority of persons concerned had refused or escaped preventive inoculation. With the full co-operation of parents it should be possible to eradicate the disease entirely. Enteric Fevers There was a slight increase in the incidence of typhoid fever with 61 cases, as compared with 51 cases in 1955. Nineteen cases occurred in the Auckland district and many of them were connected with the taking of shellfish from polluted areas. Six cases only of paratyphoid fever were notified. *New Zealand Medical Journal, June 1957.