Advances On Disease Control

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31318, 14 March 1967, Page 14

Advances On Disease Control

“Cholera, plague, smallpox, typhus and yellow fever, the scourges and diseases subject to quarantine that have killed millions of people over the centuries, are now held in check by new drugs and a rigorous system of international reporting,” says the Director-General of Health, Dr. D. P. Kennedy. Dr. Kennedy, commenting on world-wide general health problems, said that contagious diseases such as typhoid, scarlet fever, diphtheria and poliomyelitis had also been curbed and, based on past figures, New Zealand could have had a death-rate exceeding 500 in 1964 had it not been for modern techniques. There were no deaths from these diseases in New Zealand in 1964. Tuberculosis, which in 1964 could have killed 2000 New Zealanders, based on 1914 figures, had been severely checked and only 96 deaths were notified in 1964. However, said Dr. Kennedy, the increase in fast transport and the continually increasing contact between countries had made it easier for certain diseases to escape international controls. Last year yellow fever reappeared in Senegal for the first time in many years and cholera, usually confined to countries such as India, caused an epidemic in Egypt in 1947. It had also caused an epidemic in Iraq as recently as 1966 and had appeared in the Pacific. Expanding populations in-

tensified the problems of housing, water supply and the disposal of sewage and other wastes. The growth of large cities produced acute situations. High land values at city centres forced people to move to the suburbs, causing urban sprawl and demands for social services that were hard to satisfy. Pollution of air, land and water by urbanisation and industrialisation, increased occupation diseases and disabilities, multiplied industrial and traffic accidents, increased the demand for highways, schools and hospitals and created a sense of insecurity in workers unable to secure suitable housing for their families. Water Supplies It was recognised in New Zealand that water treatment plants were no better than their operators. Of 247 public water suppliees evaluated, over half were unsatisfactory. This was because small towns and rural areas were short of trained supervisory staff. New York air had been quoted as being so foul “that if it was subject to the pure food and drug laws, it would be illegal to ship it interstate because it was unfit for human consumption.” Dr. Kennedy emphasised that proper attention must be given to air pollution in New Zealand before it became a major problem as in other countries. Road, domestic and occupational accidents were ranked third among the causes of death in many European countries, and children and young people were the main victims. In 1964, the casualty rate in New Zealand would have kept a 330-bed hospital working to capacity and these figures gathered from a small population emphasised the problems faced by larger countries. Prevention of accidents was difficult, and the burden placed on skilled medical staff, hospital facilities and finance was tremendous. The national health service budget in New Zealand ran at approximately £BO million a year; something between 15 and 16 per cent of total expenditure from the Consolidated Revenue Account and about 28 per cent from total general government consumption expenditure. Thirtyseven thousand people were employed in the national health services and the wage and salary bill was £35.5 million a year. A building programme actuated by the need to replace older and inadequate services and to cater for the increase in population was in the construction and design stage for the hospital boards and would cost £74 million. Dr. Kennedy said that

cancer and cardio-vascular diseases were the first-ranking causes of death in the western world and were difficult to deal with because, though many theories had been advanced to explain them, their causes were complex and not clearly understood. Mental Illness, including dependence on drugs and alcohol, was perhaps the price being paid for a technological civilisation and it seemed that the “fruits of civilisation were replacing the Infections of the past.” Life expectation figures for Europeans before the First World War were 61 years for men and 63.5 for women; the respective figures for 1964 were 69.2 and 74.5. Life expectancy figures for the Maori people had shown a favourable increase. In the 1950 s male and female expectancy was 54.1 and 55.9; today the respective figures were about 55.9 and 61.4. Sometimes it appeared that disease must have its due, said Dr. Kennedy. Prosperous countries having eliminated starvation and mass infections found themselves with new problems. The World Health Organisation rejected the dictionary definition of the world “health" as “a state of not being sick” for the more positive “a state of complete mental, physical and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”