“Exaggerated Complacency”

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 85, 23 August 1948, Page 4

“Exaggerated Complacency”

PUBLIC ATTITUDE TO POLIOMYELITIS “In the last six months the pendulum of public opinion on poliomyelitis in New Zealand has swung from the unnecessary alarm to exaggerated complacency and there is now a feeling of optimism about the future which the facts hardly warrant,” states an editorial in the June issue of the New Zealand Medical Journal. The article comments that prominent newspaper publication of conflicting opinions about the science of epidemics has not helped the situation. “Those who would minimise our recent experience of the disease must realise that in northern districts there have been more than 500 notified caseg in six months and the incidence is yet maintained almost at this level. These numbers have been exceeded in any one year only three times in this country. “In New Zealand poliomyelitis has spread strikingly, along lines of communication. There is increasing evidence that the closing of schools with control of gatherings and movement of children has restricted the spread of infection from both numerical and geographical aspects. “In 50 years a relatively uncommon disease has become one of world-wide distribution,” the article continues. “The sinister upward trend is revealed by curves of incidence published in. February of this year by the World Health Organisation.”