UNDULANT FEVER

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21323, 16 November 1934, Page 19

UNDULANT FEVER

♦ PRECAUTIONS TO PROTECT SCHOOL CHILDREN That cases of undulant fever, caused by drinking infected milk, from which a death occurred in Waimairi recently, are not common or severe in Christchurch was maintained by authorities with whom the matter was discussed yesterday. It was stated that every precaution was being taken to make sure that the milk supplied to children in schools was free from infection. © Dr. T. Fletcher Telford, Medical Officer of Health in Canterbury, said that it was only very occasionally that a cow in a dairy herd supplying a city or a borpugh was found to be infected with bacillus abortus (the condition causing the fever), and that cow was soon detected and from the milk supply, usually being sold to be slaughtered. The Health Department was paying particular attention to the milk supplied by the different dairies to schools for the use of pupils. Close co-operation existed between the Health Department and the Department of Agriculture, and the veterinarians of the Department of Agriculture, at the request of the Health Department, were carrying out regular tests of the cattle supplying the milk to the vendors who were supplying the schools.

These tests were being made particularly in respect to tuberculosis and bacillus abortus infection in the herds. Parents of children partaking of milk in the schools need not be perturbed, for the department was watching the supply closely.