THE EPIDEMIC.

Northern Advocate, 23 March 1925, Page 4

THE EPIDEMIC.

Information concerning the course of the infantile paralysis epidemic that was published on Saturday indicates that the position throughout the Dominion is still very serious. On Friday it was stated that Auckland had a clean sheet, a period of 24 hours having elapsed without the notification of a ease of the dread disease. This good news must have suggested to most of U3 that the epidemic was waning rapidly and it woul ! d soon be possible for the Health Department to remove restrictions and permit the Dominion to return to a condition of normality. But Saturday's report dashed our hopes, revealing a Dominion total of 26 fresh cases in 24 hours, Auckland having contributed five of them, while the remarkable persistence of the disease in the Wellington district was exemplified by a record of 12 notifications. As we write today we have had no further report, but Saturday's figures are serious enough to convince us that the end of the epidemic period is not yet in sight. In 1916, of course, the disease continued active well into April, and the weather conditions this year seem favourable to a repetition of that experience. It will probably be necessary for the Health Department to maintain for some weeks to come the restrictive measures that are now in operation, and the general opinion that the schools will not be opened until after Easter, which means late in April, appears to be justified. Meanwhile the system of home lessons will have to be continued, and it is to be hoped that parents will encourage their children to make tho most of it. So far as Whangarei is concerned we learn that the scheme of home instruction has been taken up readily. If the children are kept up to their studies ihey will be all the more fitted to undertake the intensive work that will be needed later on if they are to complete the usual course before Christmas. It will be well for parents to see that the children are occupied., for it is not desirable that.

there should be any relaxation of the restrictions which prevent them attending public gatherings and congregating together. The apparent waning of the epidemic may have induced parents to become lax, especially in this district, which has had comparatively few cases of infantile paralysis, and those at somewhat distant intervals. The latest reports clearly show that the danger still exists and that the incidence of the disease is distressingly heavy. The records for the whole Dominion show that the death rate is severe, over 15 per cent, of the positive cases having ended fatally, while it seems that a substantial proportion of the remainder have suffered permanent injury or effects that it will take a long time to correct. There is in the statistics ample incentive to continue the strictest precautions.