LOW DISEASE RATE

Timaru Herald, Volume CLIII, Issue 22475, 9 January 1943, Page 6

LOW DISEASE RATE

Work Of Hygiene Sections Specialists In Desert From the Official War Correspondent with the N.Z.E.F. NOFILI A, December 27. With the advance of our Forces through country formerly occupied by Axis troops and none too hygienic Italian colonists, the work of the small section of New Zealanders who specialise in the prevention of disease has become increasingly important. By checking sources of disease —unclean prisoners, faulty water points and cleanliness, our troops and their camp sites in Tripolitania—these men are working to prevent outbreaks of dysentery and other diseases which are known to have caused heavy casualtise among the Germans and Italians. Although water has been scarce through all the New Zealanders’ months of continuous desert service, the low disease rate among our men shows the successful thoroughness ol the work of the hygiene sections. The newest equipment being used by the section is a captured mobile plant of 14 showers left by the Italians in their evacuation of Tobruk. First tested by the New Zealanders at Bardia, where it provided hot showers for 7000 men, the plant has been carried on top of one water waggon during our advance across Libya, and now gives showers every day to about 1000 men from encampments along the Gulf of Sirte. The entire equipment, which is operated by two men. fits into three small cases, and can be erected ready for use within an hour. It does not require a water point and can be operated with a wastage of only a pint of water for each man. Other hygienic section men, most of whom were health and sanitary inspectors in New Zealand, have been innoculated with a new antityphus vaccine for their work with the prisoners. During this advance yet another part of the New Zealand section has operated with our forward engineers, testing water drawn from wells along the coast.