TUBERCULOSIS IN DOMINION

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22437, 25 June 1938, Page 14

TUBERCULOSIS IN DOMINION

INCIDENCE SURVEY PROPOSED NON-RESPIRATORY CASES TO BE NOTIFIED REGULAR TESTS OF ALL NURSES SUGGESTED Proposals for a statistical survey of the incidence of tuberculosis in New Zealand have been made to the Medical Research Council, which has appointed a committee to undertake the survey. * Important recommendations already made to the council, and approved by it, are:— That tuberculosis other than of the respiratory system be made a notifiable disease. That arrangements be made for the “typing” of bacilli from cases of non-respiratory tuberculosis, and possibly from cases of pulmonary tuberculosis. That it be made a rule that all entrants to the nursing profession in New Zealand be subjected to the Mantoux test and be Xrayed, the same procedure to bo carried out at either six-monthly or 12-monthly intervals for soma years.

For some years the Otago.Medical School has been anxious to do toe “typing” of bacilli of non-respirat-ory tuberculosis, of which more than 700 cases (20 per cent, bovine) are treated annually in the public hospitals of the Dominion. The council has been recommended to investigate the possibility of having this work carried opt in Christchurch In co-operation with the committee administering the Travis bequest fund. Specimens foe Research , With tuberculosis other than of the respiratory system made notifiable the medical officers of health throughout New Zealand will be made aware of the cases in their districts and, with their co-opera-tion, a sufficient number of specimens should, in the committee’s opinion, be available to keep a research worker employed. The testing of nurses for tuberculosis is carried out in some of the main hospitals, but it is considered that it should apply universally. Personnel of Committee The chairman of the committee which will undertake the survey Is Dr. T. R. Ritchie, Director of the Division of Public Hygiene, and the other members are Dr. T. W. J. Johnson (Auckland) and Dr. H. B. Turbott, Medical Officer of Health at Hamilton. Dr. Johnson was one of the three members of a committee which in 1928 investigated the prevention and treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis in New Zealand and Dr Turbott carried out research into .tubercidosis among of the East Cape district under a grant from the Dorothy Temples Cross Research Fellowship fundi Further suggestions for social and field work will be discussed by the committee before recommendations are made to the Medical Research Council.