LEPROSY IN THE PACIFIC

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29008, 24 September 1959, Page 20

LEPROSY IN THE PACIFIC

Relief Vessels Aid Discovery

The discovery of new cases <4 leprosy and the consequent pre. vention of further infection han resulted from the employment of the three leprosy relict vessels built by the Lepers’ Tm< Board for service with the mb. sions in the British South Solomons, according to a supplied statement.

This aspect of the work <4 these vessels was referred to-in a letter to the secretary of the board (Mr P. J. Twomey) from Dr. G. L. Thomson, a New Ze ß . lander and brother of Dr. J; d. Thomson, of Sumner, says the statement. Dr. Thomson, who is medical superintendent of the Melanesian Mission’s hospital at Fauabu, wrote while at sea in the leprosy relief vessel, Fauabu Twomey, “I am returning with 20 lepen for treatment at the leper colony at St. Francis at Fauabu,” he said. “The assistant medical officer, David Dawea, had found these lepers during a campaign against yaws and began treatment pending their going to a leper colony. “On Santa Cruz, out of a population of 2000, 23 persons (1.15 per cent.) have contracted the disease from a lepromatous case of leprosy. This man returned to his people after working on a plantation fewer than 10 years ago, and these 23 persons have all been infected by him since. “On the Reefs, with a popiflj. tion of 3000, there are now 54 •'

known cases (1.8 per cent.). These are descended from a man who returned infected from plantation work in 1933. He and another man with the disease both died before the people decided that it was dangerous and isolated every known case.”