10,000 PEOPLE IN N.Z. SUFFER FROM TUBERCULOSIS

Wanganui Chronicle, 29 April 1950, Page 5

10,000 PEOPLE IN N.Z. SUFFER FROM TUBERCULOSIS

WELLINGTON, Last Night (PA). —The latest figures on the incidence of tuberculosis in New Zealand show that 10,000 persons are suffering from the disease, of which about one-third are infectious.

The Minister of Health, Mr. Watts, stated this today in announcing the appointment of Doctor J. M. Wogan as director of the Division of Tuberculosis.

Established in 1943. the Tuberculosis Division immediately tried to ' learn the incidence of the disease in New Zealand and generally to co-' ordinate the work of hospital boards l and the Department of Health in j ■fighting the disease, said Mr Watts. I The annual reports of the Director- j General of Health indicated, said the | Minister, that firmer control of the i disease had been established. With | the present system of registering all . persons notified to the department as I suffering from tuberculosis, a more 1 accurate picture of the effect of the 1 disease in New Zealand was able to be presented. At December 31, 1948, a total of 9997 persons were registered as sufferers, and of this number approximately one-third were designated as suffffering from the disease as “active” or “infectious.”—that was in a condition where they were likely to infect others. The Tuberculosis Act, 1948, had provided a means for still more effective control of the disease. The Minister said that while it recognised that control to date had resulted in steady Improvement over the last seven years, adequate hospital and sanatorium treatment wasstill necessary for prompt and efficient treatment, particularly of active cases. This accommodation would be provided as quickly as finance, labour and materials permitted. The division would continue to implement those measures, acknowledged to be the most satisfactory in the control of the disease, said the Minister. These were to intensify case finding by all recognised means, and to see that all cases needing treatment obtain it in suitable accommodation, or in their own homes; to encourage B.C.G. vaccination in certain groups as a . prophylactic against disease and arrange the rehabilitation of all convalescent sufferers from the disease.

The division would continue to interest itself in all forms of research into the disease, concluded the Minister.