“Up To Eighty Will Die This Winter”

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31881, 8 January 1969, Page 1

“Up To Eighty Will Die This Winter”

(From Out Own Reporter) WELLINGTON, January 7. The New Zealand Medical Association has predicted that up to 80 New Zealanders will die this winter of Hong Kong influenza.

In its latest bulletin, the association says the “flu scare” has caused confusion and alarm among members of the public.

“The facts seem to be that the virus has reached New Zealand, or will reach it in the near future. “It will not produce an epi; demic until the beginning of the cold season. “The reasons for this climatic dependence are not understood,” says the association. “With the onset of the cold season, an epidemic will start.

“It will lead to some disruption of public life but probably to no more than between 40 and 80 deaths.” Wholesale vaccination could cut that toll considerably but there is no prospect of it, the bulletin says. It urges doctors to order vaccine now and to use it “as soon as it becomes available,” according to their best judgment. “If the Government knew its job, the vaccine would be

free because this would be a way to save public funds. But there seems no hope of this. The people who need it most can afford it least.” The association adds that in the United States, measles vaccine has been provided free of charge to all children by the Government for more than two years. “The disease is rapidly being eradicated and has in many parts of the country been reduced to sporadic cases, mainly brought in from abroad.

“Meanwhile, in New Zealand a new measles season has started with small epidemics in various parts of the country—a kind of *mop-ping-up' operation performed by the virus after the ravages of last year, in which 13 children died.” The association says that the Government has decided to make the measles vaccine freely available in future and stocks of the chosen vaccine are in the country. “Considering the serious shortage of general practitioners, one would expect a wise administration to permit the supply of free vaccine in the areas at present threat-

ened by measles outbreaks.” But parents whose children had been vaccinated in such areas and who had applied for a refund of the cost from the Health Department had been rebuffed with a statement that the purchase of measles vaccine was their own responsibility.