NO NEW CASES IN CANTERBURY

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22004, 30 January 1937, Page 14

NO NEW CASES IN CANTERBURY

INFANTILE PARALYSIS

EPIDEMIC

DIAGNOSIS OF TIMARU SUSPECT AWAITED

No notifications of positive or suspected cases of poliomyelitis in the Canterbury-Westland health district were received by the Health Department yesterday. Dr. T. Fletcher Telford (Medical Officer for Health) said yesterday afternoon that he was still waiting for the Anal diagnosis of the case of a man of 27 who was admitted on Tuesday to the Timaru Public Hospital as a suspect.

ANOTHER POSITIVE CASE

AT DUNEDIN

(PKESS ASSOCIATION- TELSOKAM.)

DUNEDIN, January 29.

The improved position in the infantile paralysis epidemic was maintained to-day, there being only one admission to hospital. This was a male patient, aged 15, who was admitted for observaU °R- case admitted last night for observation was diagnosed as positive without paralysis, the patient being a boy of eight and a half years.

TRAVEL RESTRICTIONS

BAN TO BE LIFTED AS SOON AS PRACTICABLE

(tiiii iasociATio* tbl»gbai4.)

WELLINGTON, January 29.

Enquiries made here show that no official announcement has been made about a report that the health authorities are considering lifting the travelling ban. The department has been watching the position closely from day to day and in the light of previous experience will lift the ban at the earliest moment compatible with reasonable safety.

TOURIST TRAFFIC MAY SUFFER

EXAGGERATED REPORTS

OF EPIDEMIC

AMERICAN VISITOR’S WARNING

(P 8833 ASSOCIATIONS TELEOBAM.)

DUNEDIN, (January 29,

“Dunedin people do not seem to realise the effect this infantile paralysis epidemic scare -will have on tourist traffic. The scare has been magnified out of all proportion and -when there is only one case in Dunedin it is five by the time it reaches Auckland and a dozen in America. In the United States the press is ‘splashing’ the epidemic and T have had numbers of cablegrams enquiring how my family and Fare surviving the ‘national calamity,’ ” said Mr George M. Dillon, general manager for New Zealand of Warner Bros., who is at present m Dunedin, with Mr L. H. Roos making colour travelogues of the Dominion. It was expected, IMr Dillon said, that the Pacific Coast shipping strike would be over by April, and Americans were already preparing for summer tours. New Zealand was an ideal place for a holiday, as it contained “all the natural beauties wrapped up in a smaU package.” Rear-Admiral Byrd had done wonderful publicity work for New Zealand, as had many travellers, but all that publicity was lost through the epidemic sepre. •“In New Zealand." Mr Dillon continued, “people think that Chicago residents go round with a gun in their hip-pockets. Well, in the same way, American people think that New Zea*land residents are dying off by hundreds. Even in your own country people believe that Dunedin has 1100 cases, and one Christchurch man informed me that there was a ‘black plague’ in this city.

“It will take months to overcome this epidemic scare and your tourist trade will be badly hit,” concluded Mr Dillon. “It is not the epidemic itself that has caused the scare, but the exaggerated reports which will take a long time to live down.”