DISEASE IN AUSTRALIA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17101, 5 March 1919, Page 7

DISEASE IN AUSTRALIA.

"MAY LINGER FOR MONTHS."

SLOT? COURSE OF EPIDEMIC. A warning has been given by 'tho Federal authorities, according to a recent cable message, that the influenza epidemic i is likely to smoulder for mo'tiis. This I view was advanced some time ago by Dr. Cumpston, the director of quarantine, In an official memorandum. " The epidemic which has been recognised in three States is either the pandemic disease which, for want of a better term, we have named pneu-monic-influenza, or it is a sudden ' growth of an infection already epidemic in Australia which h s had .rnple opportunity to spread throughout the country," wrote Dr. Cumpston. " The evidence in either direction is not complete, ■ but I may be stated as follows :—Tfi:re has not been offered from any direction any evidence whatever that the early cases in Melbourne, Sydney or Adelaide had any relation to infected vessels or vessels treated in quarantine. The type of infection in Victoria is. not the type dealt i with on vessels in quarantine or,seen in countries oversea. It is, so far as facts are aT liable, a slower infection oj a less definite character. Institutional or house epidemics are noticeably uncommon, compared wih the experience of other countries. "There appears to be no fact inconsistent with the hypothesis that this disease in its present form is a continuation of what has been present for nearly twelve months! in every State, and it differs sufficiently from the high-grade infectivity Been on board arriving ships to justify, in the absence of proof of relationship to infected vessels, the deduction that the disease now being faced is no more than an extension of an already widely distributed infection. All the States appear to have been infected with some type of fatal influenza smouldering along for months, which is very liable, if not certain, to recur in localised outbreaks in one State after another for several months to come. Even if we we in the presence of a new epidemic factor, there is ample evidence available that for months past there has been in every part of Australia an infection capable of producing all that has been recorded in Australia, but which has not yet produced the calamitous outbreaks seen in other countries and vessels arriving, from them. " Briefly, it may be staled that we have had a form of fatal influenza gradually becomine more intense for months past in Australia. Whether the cases now occurvinc in three States, and possibly in ethers, represent a new infection or au extension of an already existent infection, is at present uncertain, but the balance of the evidence is in favour of the latter hypothesis The epidemic may linger on for months to come, breaking out here and there- throughout Australia. At present the.grade of infectivity is low, and the range of infection apparently short."-, ;