TUBERCULOSIS VACCINE

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25427, 25 February 1948, Page 3

TUBERCULOSIS VACCINE

IMMUNISATION IN CERTAIN CASES HEALTH DEPARTMENT’S HOPE (P.A.) WELLINGTON, Feb. 24. By the end of the year, the Health Department hopes to offer immunisation against the development of genuine tuberculosis to those people’ who, by special test, have been found free °f contact with tubercle organism. This was indicated to-night by Dr Claude Taylor. Director of the department’s tuberculosis division, at the annual meeting of the Wellington Tuberculosis Association.

Dr. Taylor said a vaccine developed some years ago by two French bacteriologists had undergone extensive tests in Scandinavia, .parts of Europe, Canada, and the United States. ‘There was now much evidence to indicate that the incidence and mortality of tuberculosis could definitely be reduced by the use of the vaccine : f it were given in addition to, and in conjunction with, the present accepted methods of control, most of which were already exercised in the Dominion.

The vaccine, continued Dr. Taylor, was now being produced in Australia, and his department was assured that supplies would be available by air transport towai«s the end of the ; ear It seemed highly desirable, he -i. that vaccine immunisation should be offered to people who had been tubercular tested and found of a type suitable to be vaccinated. The department. in association with . hospital boards and district health offices, also hoped that by widespread • tubercular testing and miniature X-ray examination. more cases of tuberculosis disease would be found before they reached infectious stc■<*. Facilities for the prompt . ratment of these cases should enstire not only a rapid ’ecovery of a particular p. ' ! °nt. but should contribute nlso towards a gradual reduction in the pool of infection which was responsible for main* .Ining a high incidence in anv one area. Before the immunisation v ■ ..ace •'ould be introd •"ed, said Dr. Tayloj it would oe necessary to have a trained body of vaccinators reedy tc undertake The help of the association, he added, would no doubt be enlisted to acquaint the with the usefulness nf this