HOME HEALTH GUIDE

Greymouth Evening Star, 23 March 1944, Page 3

HOME HEALTH GUIDE

DIPHTHERIA PROTECTION

Parents are reminded that' children can be protected against Ihe menace of diphtheria, and. the department urges that all parents should take advantage of the service that is now available through its medical officers. Full information about the immunisation treatment is obtainable from the District Health Offices. The reason that attention is once more drawn to this very serious childhood disease is that growing incidence of it in New Zealand has given cause for concern. Diphtheria is most deadly when the victim is very young—between the ages of one and five years—so that preschool children have a special claim to protection. The best time to have them protected is from six months of age and onwards, and while one year old. The child at this age takes the treatment more easily, though at any age the ill-effects are negligible. In Great Britain, for example, some 4,000,000 children have been protected against diphtheria by immunisation, and out of that huge number not one mishap occurred. In fact, the reactions were so slight that very few children were upset for a single day. Medical officers of the department carry out immunisation of children under eight years of age at school; while babies, toddlers and pre-school children are protected at the preschool clinics. An excellent plan is to have your child protected on his first birthday, and so make him safe from diphtheria infection.