URGENT HEALTH PROBLEM.

Evening Star, Issue 22798, 5 November 1937, Page 8

URGENT HEALTH PROBLEM.

When opening the Royal Show at Palmerston North yesterday the Gover-nor-General announced that the Government intended to embark on an intensive campaign against hydatids. This is a decision that is to be highly commended. Such a course has been advocated for years by Sir Louis Barett and other medical experts. It is high time that apathy was replaced by vigorous action, for the ravages of this dreadfuil disease are causing the greatest concern to the health authorities, and its incidence is said to be increasing. Last year 133 cases were treated in the hospitals of the Dominion. The mortality rate is high, roughly one in every ten cases proving fatal. Not only that, but the disease itself takes a very distressing form, entailing much suffering, and in some cases leaving (permanent ill effects. It has been proved beyond doubt that the dog is the source of the infection. In this animal a parasite tapeworm occurs, and the disease develops when the eggs of the tapeworm are swallowed by men, sheep, cattle, or pigs. Sheep are particularly prone to hydatids, and as a consequence a certain amount of economic loss occurs to the primary producers. What is more serious is the risk to human life, which furnishes every justification for the initiation of the Government’s proposals as announced by Lord Galway. Here is work that can be carried on with a minimum of expense and effort and a maximum of effect What will be desired in order to make the plans a complete success is the co-operation of those engaged in the sheep-raising industry, chiefly by refraining from feeding dogs with raw offal. That obviously is a matter that cannot be controlled by law except to a limited degree. Assistance will have to come in the shape of voluntary cooperation.

Fortunately, thanks to the discoveries of medical science, it is quite practicable to stamp out this disease. Speaking to this point, Hie Excellency said there is reason to believe that if all dog owners would administer to their dogs at regular intervalls a certain vermicide, and would take care that dogs were not fed with raw offal, the trouble would immediately be brought under control, and in duo course hydatids would no longer be a danger to human beings. All dogs have to be registered, and a suggestion is made that when an animal is registered the owner should be required to buy a stock of an approved vermicide sufficient to enable him effectively to treat his dog for the ensuing twelve months. This alone would have beneficial results, and if the help of dog owners was given in the matter of feeding a marked improvement in the conditions would quickly follow. The confidence of the medical authorities is based on experience, not on speculation. Iceland furnishes an example. Half a century ago one person in every fifty in that country was infected with hydatids. Vigorous measures were undertaken, and in 1920 the incidence of the disease was one in 2,638. All dogs, in town and country, are liable to infection, though because of the conditions the risk is greater in the rural districts. Therefore it is everybody’s concern to give support to a campaign which, initiated by the medical profession, is to be prosecuted by the Government in a practical manner. Lord Galway’s appeal for unity of effort in freeing the country from a disease that, fatal in i. any cases, occasions always much swering to these whom i£ at ;arks, should find a ready response.