WATCH ROUND THE WORLD

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 21, 26 January 1931, Page 9

WATCH ROUND THE WORLD

Up to the present time no official information confirmatory of the abov» message has reached New Zealand. The Department of Health receives weekly; messages from the League of Nations and from the High Commissioner's Office, London, with _ regard to serious epidemics occurring in any part of the world. The League of Nations has set up an Epidemiological Bureau in Singapore, whose duty it is to collect information from all the Par Eastern coun-. tries bearing on epidemic diseases, and to convey the .information to other* countries which are interested.' The Health ■ authorities in New Zealand5 are in receipt of weekly . cablegram* from Singapore, but so far have received no advice of a reported outbreak of influenza in japan. In addition to the system of advice from the League of Nations, the Health Department also is in receipt of regular cablegram* from the Higk Commisisoner's Office, from the Ministry of Health, England, giving a survey of health conditions throughout the world. A third means for acquiring information of the outbreaks of disease is by way of the bureau which was established in 1926 by the Commonwealth of, Australia. A Pacific zone was then set up, and all the countries bordering on the Pacific agreed to forward information in regard to outbreaks of disease to thd central clearing-house in Australia. New Zealand, it will be seenj is well equipped so far as receiving information of any outbreak of disease is concerned. If this is a genuine epidemia1 in Japan, the Department shonld hear, of it in the next day or two.