Influenza Still Increasing

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30482, 2 July 1964, Page 1

Influenza Still Increasing

Doctors were hard pressed by increasing numbers of influenza cases, the chairman of the Canterbury faculty of the College of General Practitioners (Dr. W. H. Rrockett) said yesterday.

Where a doctor’s services were required, it would help greatly if the request were made as early as possible in the day.

Figures provided by the research committee of the faculty show that the number of cases has risen steeply over recent weeks, and the outbreak is apparently not yet past its peak. Dr. Brockett said that in the last few weeks there had been a considerable increase in the number of cases of influenza in the city, and it

had assumed the proportions of a mild epidemic. “In the main, there Is some fever, headache, and aching in the muscles, with a cough developing after a few days. It is possible that the virus causing the influenza may also be responsible for the acute gastric and abdominal upset developed by some persons recently.

“TLere appears to be some shortening of the illness if persons go to bed soon after the appearance of symptoms. But if after 24 to 48 hours' there seems need for medical attention, it would ease the burden of medical practitioners if calls for attention were made as early as possible in the day, before 10 a.m. if at all feasible.”

The rise in influenza cases has occurred since the end of May. The number of patients seen by members of the research committee in successive weeks are: (week ended May 31, 35; June 7, 63; June 14, 158; June 21, 318; June 28, 411. Ten doctors

reported during the weeks ended May 31 and June 28; during the other week?, 11 reports were received. The contributing doctors probably see a fifth to a quarter of the total number of patients in the area.

For other diseases, the figures supplied by the research committee cover, so far, only the four weeks ended June 14. During those four weeks, members reported a 10-fold increase in measles compared with the previous four weeks (20 cases against two), and a rise in acute tonsilitis to 110 cases from 75. Gastro-enter-itis declined from 86 cases to 78, and staphylococcal infections from 64 to 60. The current influenza epidemic had not hit the Cashmere High School as severely as it had affected other schools, said the headmaster (Mr T. H. McCombs), at a meeting of the board of governors yesterday, but the number absent on any one day was 12i per cent—about three times the normal figure.