Vims expected soon

Press, 19 July 1983, Page 8

Vims expected soon

An A/Philippines-like virus, blamed for the influenza epidemic in the northern half of the North Island, seems likely to reach Christchurch.

Health Department officials said the new virus will arrive in the next week or so, if it comes at all. Those already hit by the A/ English virus which swept the rest of New Zealand cannot expect that to give them much immunity against the Philippines flu, which is a completely different but no more virulent strain.

The director of the department’s Health Promotion Division, Dr R. C. Begg, said the new virus seemed to have mutated from the A/Bangkok strain, which appeared in New Zealand a few years ago, but was far more like the original A/Philippines virus expected to arrive in the country this winter. Australian laboratory tests isolated the virus last week from samples of North Island

The Philippines outbreak was still prevalent in Auckland and other parts of the North Island. “If it is coming down, it will certainly come down in about a week,” he said. Ordinary influenza vaccinations would give some protection but a special Philippines vaccine,'that the Health Department is seeking overseas, would probably not arrive in time. The Christchurch Deputy Medical Officer of Health, Dr M. A. Brieseman, said it would only take one person with the Philippines flu on holiday or travelling

through the city to start an outbreak. However, the South Island had had a severe outbreak of the Bangkok flu some years ago. That would build up some local resistance to the similar Philippines strain that the North Island did not have. Secondary bacterial infections that often followed an attack of influenza caused more health problems than the original virus. These were mainly ear, nose, throat and chest infections which if untreated sometimes developed into more serious illnesses, he said.