OUTBACK TYPHOID

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29992, 29 November 1962, Page 15

OUTBACK TYPHOID

Rush For Vaccine (N.Z.P.A.-Reuter— Copyright) ALICE SPRINGS, Nov. 28. Hundreds of people rushed into Alice Springs Hospital today for vaccination against typhoid, after the discovery of an outbreak of the disease on a property 80 miles away. Supplies of vaccine were being flown today from Melbourne. 1200 miles away to the south, and Darwin, 800 miles north, to augment the town's limited supplies. The discovery of the outbreak of 20 cases at Maryvale Station, 78 miles south of Alice Springs, was announced yesterday by the Northern Territory Director of Health, Dr. lan Byrne. Today he warned that possibly 30 or 40 new cases could be expected from the station, which has no communications to Alice Springs.

Dr. Byrne was speaking over the Royal Flying Doctor radio, which, even today, is the main means of contact with the isolated homesteads which dot the 500,000 square miles of the territory. He told his listeners gathered round their two-way receivers that arrangements were being made to immunise all people in Central Australia. “What has happened at Maryvale can happen anywhere," he said. Dr. Byrne said yesterday the typhoid carrier, a white man, had been in Alice Springs after visiting Maryvale.

It was reported today that while at Maryvale the carrier had done much of the cooking and had served meals and drinks to a large number of people from the station and other properties over a wide area of surrounding country. The 12,000 - square mile Maryvale Station is cut by the north-south railway line which runs 2000 miles between Adelaide and Darwin. Move On Racial Discrimination (N.Z.P.A.-Reuter— Copyright) LONDON, November 26. A petition calling for legislation against racial discrimination was today presented to an all-party group of British members of Parliament. The 15 bundles of petition forms, signed by more than 430,000 people, were handed over outside the House of Commons. The National Council for Civil Liberties, the London Anti-Fascist committee, the Yellow Star Movement, the Association of Jewish ExServicemen and the Board of Deputies of British Jews, gathered the signatures.