Switch To Live Vaccine For Polio Inoculations

Press, Volume C, Issue 29480, 5 April 1961, Page 7

Switch To Live Vaccine For Polio Inoculations

‘The Press’* Special Service

WELLINGTON, April 4. A committee of the Board of Health will meet wdthin a fortnight to plan future anti-poliomyelitis inoculation programmes, according to the Director-General of Health. Dr. H. B. Turbott, The department, he said, proposed soon to switch from using Salk vaccine to using live vaccine for inoculating babies and expectant mothers. Everyone in New Zealand up to the age of 21 wishing to undergo vaccination had already been inoculated. This programme seemed to have been effective, as reflected in the low number of cases reported last year. There had yet been no firm plan to offer the vaccine to adults. No further suspected cases of poliomyelitis beyond those, at New Plymouth had been reported, he said. The Health Department was not alarmed at the reports from New Plymouth. Little could be done to keep special watch beyond the continuing reporting system which had long been in effect. According to the medical

officer of health for Taranaki (Dr. I. W. McDougall) the three suspected cases of poliomyelitis reported in. Taranaki within a week suggest an increased prevalence of the disease which could show up in other centres. However, Dr. McDougall said, the prevalence was unlikely to develop into an epidemic because of the high percentage of young people immunised. The first suspected case, a young married New Plymouth woman, died last week. The second suspected case, a New Plymouth man, was ‘' improving satisfactorily.” the New Plymouth Hospital reported.