DIPHTHERIA AT PAPATOETOE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19658, 9 June 1927, Page 14

DIPHTHERIA AT PAPATOETOE.

Sir, —Having read with interest and a certain amount of indignation the report of the medical officer of health, regarding the so-called "mild" epidemic of diphtheria, 1 should like to ask one or two questions. If fumigation is useless, why, then, does the department insist on a thorough fumigation after a case! Also, has Dr. Chesson a family of his own ? If so, would he be prepared to allow them to attend the Papatoetce school with conditions as they are at the present time ? Drainage, we all know, is a great drawback to Papatoetoe, but surely some improvement in sanitary conditions at the school might be made, even if it is not possible to have them as modern as the more fortunate town schools. They may at least be expected to be kept thoroughly clean, and thereby avoid to a great extent the unpleasant conditions which many of us know exist. This epidemic has now had • about nine months' clear run, and has been a constant. source of anxiety to parents, even if they mav have so far been fortunate enough to have lived in dread, and not reality, of the disease, Repeated appeals have been made to local bodies in an | endeavour to raise interest in this outbreak, and each in turn shifts tha responsibility to the Health Department. | What has been done up to the present time ? One suspected case in a boys* ' school in the South was sufficient to 1 cause the school to be immediately ' closed, and all pupils isolated. Surely 1 something of these steps might have been * taken in the caso of Papatoetoe school l and probablv have thereby avoided a greater nuinber of these cases. The ! statement that the whole school has been swabbed onco, "probably twice," is not [ altogether correct, as some of the older 1 children at the school have not been 1 swabbed at all. If, as suggested, this 1 epidemic has been largely due to car- ' riers, is it not possible that carriers may I have been found among these children, or even some of the teachers themselves ' may have unknowingly been spreading ■ the disease ? Hoping that the parents i who, like myself, have had the anxiety I end expense, to say nothing of the likely I after-effects on the children themselv€§j I wHI take this matter up and insist that I something be done to really satisfy them* ; selves that there is some determined attempt made to find the seat of this out» break A Dxss4£ts«E»