Grant For Goitre Study In Himalayan Villages

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31097, 28 June 1966, Page 11

Grant For Goitre Study In Himalayan Villages

An expedition to the Himalayas, initiated by Sir Edmund Hillary, to gain new information about a disease prevalent there will receive a grant for equipment and techical assistance from the Wellcome Trust in London.

One of the greatest public health problems in the Himalayas is goitre, a condition frequently caused by iodine deficiency, which affects up to 50 per cent of school-children in Himalayan villages. Two New Zealand doctors, Dr. H. K. Ibbertson, physician-in-charge of the radio-isotope unit at Auckland Hospital, and Dr. M. Pearl will accompany the expedition and study the disease by means of radioisotope techniques. Mr J. Taite, senior physicist at Christchurch Hospital, will be in charge of the electronic equipment. Blood samples will be sent back to New Zealand for biochemical and radioisotope analysis, and data will be processed in the Auckland Hospital’s statistics department. Since Sir Edmund Hillary

climbed Everest in 1953 there have been a number of New Zealand expeditions to the region, primarily concerned with setting up schools. In 1964 a survey was made of the health problems in the region, and as a result the 1966 expedition has the object of setting up a permanent hospital clinic to be staffed by New Zealand doctors. Dr. Ibbertson and Dr. Pearl will study the goitre problem in detail, and lay the foundation for an efficient treatment programme.

The International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna has made a grant of £5200 towards the costs of the expedition, to cover the salaries of the research officers and radio-isotope equipment. The Wellcome Trust will contribute £3OOO for additional equipment, for a technician’s salary, and for air freight expenses. The Wellcome Trust was created by the will of Sir Henry S. Wellcome, who died in 1936. It is making grants at the rate of £1 million a year for medical and allied research.