Pool owners hot about amoeba find

Press, 8 December 1982, Page 2

Pool owners hot about amoeba find

PA Whangarei Ngawha thermal pool owners and caretakers fear their business will suffer after the discovery in a pool in the area of the amoeba which can cause amoebic meningitis.

None of them have heard officially from the Health Department and they accuse the department of creating an unnecessary scare at their busiest time of- the year. The proprietors of the Maori Pools, Domain Pools, and the private Ngawha Spa Hotel pools, said yesterday there had never been any case of meningitis in the area.

There are signs warning people not to put their heads

under water at the two public pools, and one of the private pool’s owners said they would put up new signs to replace notices which had fallen apart. Mrs Margaret Beadle said people washed their hair regularly in the pools but never fully immersed themselves. The pools are intended for sitting in only. Mr Kiro Witehira, caretaker of the Maori Pools, said the pools "have been here as long as my ancestors and I have never known anyone to get meningitis from them.” Mr Norman Hamilton, caretaker of the Domain Pools, run by the Bay of Islands County Council, said

his pools were scrubbed but every night. He wanted the Health Department to identify which pools the amoeba were found in. “We are getting on to Christmas and this sort of news will make things very hard," he said. “This is our busiest time of the year and news of amoeba will affect business.” The organism, which gains access to the brain through the nostrils, was positively identified in one pool after routine tests by the Health Department. A similar organism was identified in water from two other pools but further testing is required to establish its disease potential.