DENGUE FEVER

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23748, 21 September 1942, Page 6

DENGUE FEVER

♦ CONCERN FOR TROOPS IN AUSTRALIA

CAMPAIGN TO PREVENT INCREASE

(0.C.) SYDNEY, August 26. Officers of the hygiene section of the Australian Army are preparing to meet an invasion of aedes aegypti, the dengue fever mosquitoes, who are known to be massing in force in water tanks in large areas of the country. While dengue is rarely fatal, it is infectious and its great danger lies in its power to put troops out of action for weeks at a time when their services may be urgently needed. It infected many camps before the winter, and unless it can be successfully combated it may create greater damage in the approaching summer. Now is considered the critical period, as with the warm weather the mosquito aedes is beginning to hatch out from wrigglers and eggs which have survived the winter. A survey by Army entomologists has established that this is happening in towns in the dengue belt. Water temperatures in tanks in sunny situations have risen and the first of the new season’s adults have already appeared. In the winter months the Army Medical. Service, with the co-operation of civil authorities, conducted a campaign to warn people of the danger and to induce them-to take measures to prevent the mosquito from breeding. How faithfully the advice was carried out will be shown in the next two months. May Spread South While dengue cases are not known so far south as Sydney doctors say there is no reason why the disease should not spread to the city, especially to outer suburbs, where many householders, because of water restric. tions, have installed water tanks. But other large towns engaged in war production are in the belt, and if the fever reaches epidemic proportions in them, it will seriously affect the war effort. Another serious disease which Army doctors are striving to combat is meningitis, and civil health authorities are perturbed at its spread to cities and towns. There have been 314 cases reported in the Sydney metropolitan area since January as against 213 cases in the whole of New South Wales last year. The death rate, however, is lower, only 12 per cent, of cases proving fatal this year, compared with 18 per cent, in 1941, It is believed the death rate will continue to fall because doctors are now able to make diagnosis more quickly and accurately. The British Medical Association has circularised members advising them to follow Army routine and administer sulfanilamide to suspected cases,