HEALTH SAFEGUARDS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20922, 11 July 1931, Page 8

HEALTH SAFEGUARDS.

NEW ZEALAND SYSTEM. QUARANTINE CONDEMNED. " VEXATIOUS AND INEFFICIENT." SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM URGED. A protest against the system of quarantine in force in New Zealand was made at the meeting of the Board of Health in Wellington this week. It was pointed out that New Zealand and Australia were practically alone among civilised countries in clinging to a system which* had been abandoned by Britain as vexatious, expensive and inefficient more than ha}f-a-century ago. After considering a report presented by Dr. Watt, Director-General of Health, the board unanimously passed a resolution expressing the opinion that the adoption of the English system of quarantine in New Zealand would give at least as much- protection as that at present in force, while it would enable a considerable saving to be effected in administrative costs and involve less interference with shipping and with the convenience of the travelling public. Under the English system, if a ship arrives with infectious disease on board, the are taken to isolation hospitals, but all other persons on board are allowed to go about their business, after they have given their names and addresses and undertaken to report to the local medical officers of health at regular intervals for a certain time, depending on the period of incubation of the disease. These persons are kept under careful surveillance, and at the first sign of their having contracted the complaint they are isolated and treated exactly as a case arising locally would be dealt with. Epidemics in Spite o! Quarantine.

If this system were adopted in NewZealand the maintenance of quarantine establishments at Auckland and Wellington would no longer be necessary and a considerablo saving of expense would be made at a time when it is particularly desirable that every possible economy should be effected. The leading experts of the Public Health Department supported the opinion expressed by the Board of Health in its resolution. The English system has the obvious advantages of simplicity and economy.

Dr. Watt, in his report, pointed out that "quarantine is at the best an imperfect means of defence against the importation of disease. Serious epidemics have been introduced into New Zealand on at least three occasions within the last 16 years, although the full procedure has been in operation. These occasions were'the smallpox epidemic of 1913 among the Maoris of the North Island, the outbreak of similar disease among the population of Otago" and Southland in 1920-21, and the outbreak of dysentery among the Maoris in the Auckland Province in 1929. On the other hand, actual experience of the English system proved an adequate safeguard, although it came into operation after some delay, and under considerable disadvantages. English Plan Recommended In 1923. In 1929 a case of smallpox was discovered in Sydney among the passengers on the Aorangi, which had passed through Auckland, said Dr. Watt in his report. The ship, while in Auckland, was discovered to be infected, but the infection, was considered to be chickenpox. The measures taken by the department, after it had received information from Sydney about the case, were to keep all passengers who had disembarked from the ship under observation until the incubation period of the disease had elapsed. Nothing happened, but if a case of smallpox had developed there is no doubt at all that the position would have been met, and that New Zealand would have been adequately protected by prompt isolation of the case and prompt vaccination of the contacts.

If the. true diagnosis had been established at Auckland the boat would have been quarantined with the usual extreme inconvenience to the travelling public and great cost to the ..Union Steam Ship Company and so utimately to the public. ,

As far back as 1923, Dr. Watt, then Director of Public liygiene, who had just returned from Australia, where he had an opportunity of inspecting the Australian system, presented a report to the Board of Health on the subject of quarantine, in which he recommended the adoption of .the English system. Dr. Valintine, who was then director-general, and tbe senior officers of the department, Drs. Frengley. and Makgill, supported the recommendation and the Board of Health in December, 1923, passed a resolution expressing its opinion that the English procedure should be adopted in New Zealand. On that occasion no action was taken by the Cabinet, but public opinion is better informed as to quarantine than it was then, and tbe members of the Board of Health thought that in the present urgent need for economy in every department, the adoption of this reform should again be suggested.