DISEASE BY AIR.

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20829, 12 April 1933, Page 12

DISEASE BY AIR.

GUARDING AUSTRALIA. STRICT PRECAUTIONS. (FROM OUR olts CORRESPONDENT.) SYDNEY, April 6. Strict precautions against the transmission of disease by air are contained in the draft convention of the League of Nations, which is being discussed at the conference of the Advisory Council of the Eastern Bureau of the League at Singapore. Australia is being represented by the Director-General of Health (Dr. Cumpston), whose mission it is to ensure that steps will be taken by the bureau to prevent Australia being exposed to the risk of mfection with Eastern endemic diseases, such as bubonic plague and smallpox, because of the proposed Singa-pore-Darwin mail service. Hitherto distance has been Australia's chief safeguard against these diseases. The aeroplane, by annihilating distance, has broken down this natural barrier. The Commonwealth will propose precautionary measures which, Dr. Cumpston believed before he left, would prove acceptable to the countries in whose territories the Singapore-Darwin aeroplane would land. These measures include a rigid inspection of the passengers, mails, and goods at the point of embarkation, and, if necessary, quarantine restrictions at the point of arrival. The conference is expected to end this week, and the result will be eagerly awaited, especially as all countries are now discussing ways and means of preventing the spread of disease now that air travel has been so wonderfully developed. Inspection and Quarantine. The air ports at which it is proposed that the aeroplanes should call on their way to Australia are Dilly and Bima in Portuguese Timor and Sourabaya and Batavia in the Netherlands East Indies. Singapore has direct contact witft all the plague centres of the East, and elaborate precautions to protect Australia will be enforced before passengers are allowed to embark for Darwin. The regulations provided in the League of Nations draft convention include the attendance of a medical officer at aerodromes to examine all passengers, elaborate precautions in districts where disease exists or is expected, disinfection or quarantine of the aircraft, passengers, and cargo, and placing passengers from infected areas under observation until all risk of spreading the disease is past. _ The aerodromes will be kept informed of disease developments m all countries through which the aeroplane passes. Medical •officers at aerodromes have the right to inspect passengers and crew and prohibit embarkation of persons with any symptoms of infectious diseases. Aeroplanes in flight are prohibited from throwing overboard anything calculated to cause an outbreak of disease. When an aeroplane leaves an infected area a thorough cleansing and disinfection will be given and persons with symptoms of disease excluded. Iri the case of plague passengers and crew may be subjected to surveillance for six days, cholera for Ave days, smallpox for 14 days with vaccination, and yellow fever for six days with precautions for the killing of mosquitoes.