"SERIOUS MATTER."

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 236, 5 October 1937, Page 9

"SERIOUS MATTER."

SPREAD OF HYDATIDS.

LEGISLATION PREDICTED.

MANY CASES TRACED TO DOGS.

(By Telegraph— Special to " Star.")

WELLINGTON, this day.

A measure to control hydatids in New Zealand will, it is understood, be one of the bills brought down before the present HCHsioii concludes. For eome time past the Health Department has been doing preliminary work '•n the question of hydatids, which ie much more serious in its attack on the national well-being than is generally realised. In 193.3, the year for which the latest figures are available, hydatids furnished 103 cases to public hospitals, of which 13 died. These deaths represent 12 per cent of the total cases in public hospitals.

Recently Sir Louis Barnett, Emeritus Professor of Surgery at Otago University, described it as "a very serioue. matter." He declared that of the 31,000,000 sheep in New Zealand at least one-half were infected with hydatid cysts, and that in the case of aged sheep the incidence might be as high as 80 per cent.

Dogs are a main factor in the spreading of the disease here. In the last ten years there have been 1000 cases, many of which have been traced to dogs. The disease ie caused by tapeworms which inhabit the intestines of dogs, and it is proposed that anti-hydatid medicine shall be provided for all registered dogs in future. The medicine would have to be administered only about four times a vear.

Other measures for control of the dis ease arc under consideration.