INFECTIOUS DISEASES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23215, 8 December 1938, Page 24

INFECTIOUS DISEASES

CASES IN WELLINGTON MORE DIPHTHERIA REPORTED [by telegraph—PßESS association] WELLINGTON, Wednesday A review of the incidence of infectious disease in Wellington and its suburbs was given by the medical officer of health, Dr. 11.I 1 . S. Mac Lean, yesterday. He said there had been a marked decrease iu cases of scarlet fever, and no cases of poliomyelitis, either paralysed or non-paralysed, had been reported so far this year. Dr. Mac Lean added that the notifications of diphtheria for the first ten months of the year, however, were already in excess of the 1937 total for the whole year. Up to October-31 of this year there had been 23 deaths from measles in Wellington and the suburbs. No deaths were reported in 1937. Other non-notifiable infectious diseases Were influenza, which had caused eight deaths in the first ten months of the present year, and pnenmonia, from which 57 persons had died, continued Dr. Mac Lean. In 1937 the figures had been 11 and 30 respectively. • Diphtheria, however, had shown a decided increase compared with last year. "It is hoped, during next year, to undertake a campaign of immunisation against the disease," said Dr. MacLean. "Parents will be invited to bavo their children immunised at school."