VIRULENCE INCREASING AT SUVA

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 139, 9 December 1918, Page 8

VIRULENCE INCREASING AT SUVA

HEAVY MORTALITY AT FRIENDLY ISLANDS. (DOTTED PRBSS ASSOCIATION. —COPYRIGHT.) SUVA, 9th December. Influenza, is increasing in virulence in the country, and there is heavy mortality. The European deaths total 15. Reports from the Friendly Islands state that there have been several hundred deaths, including Dowager Queen Takibo. The European dead include Mrs. J. B. Watkin, Miss Jennie Matthews, Rev. Fathers Reiter and Kervegan, Elder Lasker, Mrs. Charles Percival, and Charles Richelman.

The epidemic is abating at Nukualofa, but is still prevalent in the country. There is urgent need for. doctors and nurses in Fiji.

During the epidemic the ; position at various city hotels was such as to cause the' proprietors some concern,- the patients including both guests and hotel staff. However, in many cases, outside ■ relief was secured, while in other cases the guests lucky enough to escape the ■epidemic, acted as nurses and filled many other capacities in excellent style. The establishments as a result were able to carry on, certainly "with some inconvenience, hut there was no grumbling. Rumours have been circulated concerning the seriousness of the position at certain hotels which may have a detrimental effect and place the establishments under suspicion as being still houses of infection, whereas in most cases the position has resumed the normal. Mr. Knowsley, proprietor of the Hotel Bristol, wishes to correct r,,n erroneous, impression concerning his Cubastreet hostel. jAt no time, he states, during the epidemic ■were there more than nineteen or twenty patients at the Bristol, and the builduu? has been free from influenza for at least ten days. The hotel has been thoroughly fumigated and disinfected and has been passed by five inspectors, who report the hotel "thoroughly clean and run on exemplary lines." There was only one death among the patients, that of a man who suffered a relapse through going out too soon, and who succumbed to double pneumonia. A paragraph 1 in The Post on Saturday to the effect that Nurse Everitt took charge of about thirty patients at the hotel and nursed them back to convalescence is inclined to convey the impression that the Hotel was an unofficial emergency hospital, whereas, Mr. Knowsley states, there was not, at any time, that ntunber down, and several of those who were affected were removed to different hospitals. The services of Sergeant-Major Andrews are worthy of special mention in connectionwith the epidemic as it affected the Hotel Bristol and other houses in the Wellington Central Health Committee's district, and his assistance is highly commended by various proprietors.