INFLUENZA EPIDEMIC.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5440, 26 June 1929, Page 2

INFLUENZA EPIDEMIC.

THE WORST SINCE 1918-19. Not many people may be aware that the present influenza epidemic, on world figures, is,the worst that has been experienced since the great pandemic of 1918-19, which killed more people than were slain by the Great War (says the “Dominion”). According to a Bulletin isued by the League of Nations’ Health Organisation, the present epidemic does not resemble its terrible predecessor in its age constitution. The mortality figure, however, is twice as great as the 1927 epidemic and fifty per cent, higher than the maximum of the 1922 outbreak. The present mortality “is almost entirely among persons of an advanced age.” The Epidemiological Intelligence of the Nations appears to have kept very careful track of the ramifications of the present epidemic. It originated in Northern China, spread to San Francisco, thence to the Atlantic seaboard and to Europe, where a very high mortality rate was recorded. In America the death-rate averaged from 20.5 per thousand in some districts to 45 per thousand in others. It reached 55 in Glasgow' and 66 in Leeds. These figures should be a warning to people in these latitudes, now in the winter months, to take due precautions. Although the disease has not assumed the deadly form of the great epidemic of 1918-19, it nevertheless has pronounced epidemic characteristics. To bed, and stay there until well, is good advice to all and sundry.