INFLUENZA

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 3 September 1934, Page 3

INFLUENZA

OUTBREAKS IN NEW ZEALAND RELATIONSHIP WITH OTHER 00 UNTRIES TUf. relationship of influenza epidemics in New Zealand to those in other countries, and the danger ot general infection from outside, are discussed m the annual report of the Department ot Health presented to the House, of Representatives. Tile report states that an outbreak of influenza, in Britain, culminating m January. 1933, again roused wide public interest in the question whether New Zealand must in due course suffer an invasion of the disease from this quaitei. The recent history of influenza is that the world has suffered two great pandemics, those of 1889-92 and 1918-19, and that after the widespread diffusion of virus in this way local epidemics of varying degrees of intensity have tended to oc mini the winter months in every quarter of the globe. In New Zealand, tor instance, it is usual to experience a socalled “seasonal” outbreak of influenza from June to September, while in Britain similar outbreaks occur during the winter and early spring months. It will be seen, says the report, that while Australia, and New Zealand follow one another closely, there is not the same relationship between influenza in Britain and in file Antipodes. Indeed, for the period 1923-28, the curve for England and Wales takes a diametrically opposite course to those for Australia and New Zealand. Thus 1924 and 1927, peak years for England and Wales, were marked by low incidence in Australia and New Zealand, while 1923, 1926, and IS2B, with few' influenza deaths in England and Wales, proved years with heavy mortality in Australia and New Zealand. After 1928 there is general similarity between the curves, the peak years and years of low incidence being the same for all three countries.

The evidence altogether is inconclusive, states the report. All that can be said from the study is that epidemic influenza docs not necessarily, nor even usually, invade New Zealand from Britain. Theperiod of time which separates the winter epidemics of two countries further supports the belief that these seasonal outbreaks are purely local affairs, clue not to any importations of fresh virus, but to the lighting up of infection which is ever present but which smoulders until activated by suitable environmental and biological conditions. Influenza of the usual seasonal type, became general throughout the Dominion in the winter of 1933.