POLIOMYELITIS OUTBREAK

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25608, 24 September 1948, Page 6

POLIOMYELITIS OUTBREAK

JUNIOR SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS TARANAKI NOT HOLDING EVENT (P.A.) NEW PLYMOUTH, Sept 23. Because of the continued prevalence of poliomyelitis in the province, the Taranaki Centre of the New Zealand Amateur Swimming Association decided this evening to ask the New Zealand Council that it be relieved of the 1949 junior and intermediate national championships, which were to have been held at Stratford. The president 'Mr C. R. F. Tilley) said that because of the seriousness of the epidemic, he. felt that the New Zealand council should either abandon the championships or allocate them to a centre where poliomyelitis was not prevalent. The latter course would not replly meet the case, for children from all parts of New Zealand would attend. The congregation of children might not be the cause of the disease and even doctors did not know how it spread, but he opposed taking the risk. The centre decided that if the championships were held elsewhere no Taranaki teams would compete.

FOUR MORE CASES AT WELLINGTON

(P.A.) WELLINGTON, Sept. 23. Four poliomyelitis cases were reported in the Wellington health district to-day. They were a boy, aged nine years, from Wellington, a boy, aged three, from Lower Hutt, a man, aged 23, from Petone and a baby, aged 21 months, from Lower Hutt.