Wellington Area Still Clear

Northern Advocate, 3 December 1947, Page 4

Wellington Area Still Clear

WELLINGTON, Wed. (P.A.)—Other than those already taken, no further public precautions against the possible spread of the infantile paralysis epidemic from the North to .Wellington are considered necessary by the Health Department in the meantime. No positive or suspected cases 'have been reported in the Wellington district.

As a result of the epidemic a number of bookings by rail and air to the North have been cancelled, while other persons are going to the South Island earlier than they, would normally have done. It was announced today that all activities of Girl Guides and Brownies in Wellington Province have been suspended until February. Commenting on a Press Association Masterton. message in reference to the possibility of relationship between dogs suffering from distemper and children developing infantile paralysis, the Medical Officer of Health for Wellington (Dr H. Smith) said distemper was a virus disease which also left animals paralysed, but it was not the same disease as infantile paralysis. Monkeys were the only known animals able to contract infantile paralysis in the same way as humans.