TROPICAL DISEASES.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 26 February 1926, Page 7

TROPICAL DISEASES.

THE ROCKEFELLER CAMPAIGN

SAMOA AND COOK ISLANDS. TRIBUTE TO NEW ZEALAND. Dr. S. M. Lambert, M.D., an expert in tropical medicine, who is conducting a health survey of the Pacific Islands on behalf of the Rockefeller Foundation, has made a comprehensive report on Western Samoa and the Cook Islands. The three outstanding tropical diseases, so far as the Pacific is concerned, are yaws (framboesia), hookworm and filariasis. Hookworm is being steadilv got under, but much information has still to be obtained before any effective control of filariasis can be had. But yaws, in many respects the worst of the three, may be said to be definitely controlled. In Western Samoa, the success of the campaign against yaws is most marked, a fact, Dr. Lambert considers, of which the New Zealand Administration can well be proud. THE TOLL OF YAWS. Yaws is a dreadful disease, and children are particularly liable to it. It takes a great toll of infant life, and those who survive its attack are usually permanetly disfigured. Dr. Lambert says that yaws ‘‘ is probably the greatest cause, direct and indirect, of death among the Pacific.races in the first two years of life. Its tertiary effects are the cause of much suffering and ill-health throughout adult life. The treatment of this condition in Pacific Islanders is probably the finest demonstration to them of the value of Western medicine.” In Western Samoa, says the doctor, yaws is well under control and may be eradicated in the* near future. Concerning the same disease in the Cook Islands, he says: “Yaws, on the whole has been handled well. If present plans as outlined by the Medical Department are carried out, yaws will cease to exist except in a sporadic form as carried into the group.” IMPROVE THE SANITATION! But though much has been done, there is much to do. People in New Zealand cities, used to modern drainage, can hardly realise the position in the tropics without even latrines. .The control of so many diseases depends .on sewagedisposal and soil-sanitation that this subject necessarily looms large in both Dr. Lambert’s reports. He urges the adoption of measures to give adequate sanitation, proper latrines, and pure water supply, the need of which the authorities in both the groups mentioned fully realise, and which in Samoa are gradually being installed. IN THE COOK GROUP. In the Cook Islands, the campaign against these diseases does not appear to have advanced so far as in Western Samoa. On the other hand, says Dr. Lambert, the Cook Group, on the whole, has no grave public health problems to face except the serious one of soil-sani-tation. In this regard he sounds a serious warning against the risk of typhoid, and urges the construction of proper latrines throughout the whole group on the principle of locking the stable door before the steed is stolen. Mass treatment and the teaching of hygiene in the schools are also recommended. There is not a heavy hookworm infection in the Cook Islands, where, also, the kev of the conquest of filariasis has yet to* be found. So far as the Cook | Islands are concerned “Filariasis cannot be treated with our present know- ■ ledge; and psophylapis —the suppression ! of the mosquito—is, with our present [ knowledge, probably out of range of the Cook Islands Treasury.”