POLIOMYELITIS RESEARCH

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25606, 22 September 1948, Page 6

POLIOMYELITIS RESEARCH

WORK IN NEW ZEALAND STATEMENT BY MINISTER OF HEALTH (From Our Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, September 22. The opinion of health authorities in Australia will be sought immediately in a special investigation which is to be made by New Zealand into the cause, method of spreading, and cure of poliomyelitis. The Medical Research Council has decided upon the steps to be taken and has communicated its decision to the Government.

“The. Government will gladly endorse all reasonable steps by the Medical Research Council to find the solution to this distressing problem,” said the Minister of Health (Miss M. B. Howard) this evening. “A certain amount of research has been undertaken in New Zealand for many years past. The results of these investigations are on record. Among the committees operating under the council is one known as the microbiology research committee. This particular committee has a number of tasks in hand, one of which is an investigation into poliomyelitis.

“The Medical School at Otago University has been working on this problem for several years, and a wellqualified research worker has given a great deal of time to his investigation of the disease.”

Preliminary Consideration It is intended that New Zealand should have the benefit of Australian opinion before deciding what further lines of research to pursue. Soon after the present epidemic broke out in Auckland late last year, the Medical Officer of Health in Auckland (Mr A. W. S. Thompson) undertook a detailed inquiry into all the cases which occurred in and around Auckland city. The results have been presented to the Department of Health and will be published as an appendix to its annual report, which will be tabled in the House of Representatives shortly. Mentioning this, Miss Howard described Dr. Thompson’s report as most interesting. She said his investigations had opened up a new line of approach. “RESTRICTIONS A WASTE OF TIME ” VIEWS OF* BRITISH JOURNAL The view that the restrictions usually imposed when outbreaks of poliomyelitis occurred were a waste 6f time is expressed in the “Medical Officer,” a journal published in Brit“In poliomyelitis, there is some evidence that in some outbreaks some alleged abortive cases have been proved to be genuine reactions to the polio virus.” the journal says. ‘‘We can go no further than this. We know that in 1947. notifications of poliomyelitis numbered 6000; we guess that double this number might have been notified with propriety. If the suggestion that notifications should include abortive or non-paralytic cases had been followed, perhaps 60,000 might have been notified. If certain estimates of the percentage of reactions to those infected stand, the number of persons infected would be 50 per cent, greater. Therefore, for isolation or quarantine to be affective, half the population would have to be isolated for an unknowm period from the other half, which is probably not at risk but immune. x ‘‘ln some cases, isolation might perhaps be of value, but when we weigh all the evidence at present before us. we must conclude that all isolation and restriction used for poliomyelitis is only a waste of time.”