POLIOMYELITIS OUTBREAK

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27859, 6 January 1956, Page 10

POLIOMYELITIS OUTBREAK

FURTHER SUSPECTED

A suspected case of poliomyelitis was admitted to the Christchurch Public Hospital yesterday afternoon. The patient is a 13-year-old boy from the Sydenham district. If the case becomes positive, it will be the seventh to have been admitted to the hospital. Five other persons are at present in the hospital, and there was one death last month.

The Medical Superintendent (Dr. T. Morton) announced yesterday that tonsillectomies had been stopped at the hospital except for very urgent cases. He said it was generally thought that when poliomyelitis was about persons who underwent the operation were more liable to the bulbar form of poliomyelitis which involved breathing and swallowing. FOUR MORE IN TIMARU HEALTH DISTRICT (New Zealand Press Association) TIMARU, January 5. Four more positive cases of poliomyelitis have been reported in the Timaru Health District —two in Oamaru, one in Waimate, and one in Geraldine—according to the medical officer of health, Dr. N. T. Barnett this morning. This brings the number of cases in the district since the beginning of the present outbreak to 25, including the death on December 27 of a four-year-old boy from St. Andrews. In spite of the fact that thousands of holidaymakers and visitors are congregated in Timaru city the incidence in the city has been comparatively light. The Timaru Health District extends from the Rakaia river to Shag Point in Otago—47 miles north by rail from Dunedin.