SEVERAL STRAINS OF VIRUS

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

SEVERAL STRAINS OF VIRUS

FAMILY OF DISEASES POSSIBLE “We may be fighting not one disease. but a whole family of slightly related diseases,” said Dr. Hart E. Van Riper, medical director of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, to the first international conference on poliomyelitis in Manhattan, according to an article in the “New Zealand National Review.” “We do know already that there are several strains of infantile paralysis capable of producing clinical symptoms, but we do not know how closely related these virus strains are. or, indeed, if they are biologically related at all,” he said. “We do not know whether special measures of prevention or treatment are necessary for each individual type. Until this problem is solved there can be no certain prevention or cure.”

Although the proportion of older victims of the disease was increasing in many parts of the world, its victims were still mostly children, the article said. As a fatal disease, poliomyelitis was well below malaria, and as a disabler it stood well below mental illness.

Mortality from the disease averaged only 1 per cent., it was stated, and the number of children permanently crippled had seldom been more than per cent., even during the worst epidemics.

SIX NEW CASES AT WELLINGTON

(P.A.) WELLINGTON. Sept. 21. Six new cases of poliomyelitis were notified in the Wellington health district to-day. They were a girl, aged 13, of Masterton, who had been under observation in hospital for some days, three girls, aged 10, four, and three, and two boys, both aged four, all from Lower Hutt.

Since the outbreak began the total number of cases reported in the district is 181, 54 this month.

A Lower Hutt boy. aged six, who was admitted to hospital on September 14, died to-day.

PRECAUTIONS TAKEN IN SCHOOLS

Precautions against the spread of infantile paralysis are being taken in schools under the control of the Canterbury Education Board. The secretary of the board (Mr L. E. Rowley) said yesterday that teachers were keeping a careful watch on children coming from known centres of infection, and such children were excluded from attending school for a period. Similarly, children who returned after visiting centres of infection were excluded for a time from school. Cleanliness was being rigorously enforced in the schools.