INFANTILE PARALYSIS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26632, 1 December 1947, Page 4

INFANTILE PARALYSIS

The decision, announced by the Director-general of Health, to close all schools in the North Island as a precaution against the spread of the outbreak of infantile paralysis was prompt and commendable. Reports of the appearance of the complaint in country districts indicated that its incidence was widening and that immediate measures were necessary to prevent children from congregating in a manner that would expose them to possible infection. On these occasions the health authorities must make, and accept responsibility for, all decisions that might have to be carried out for the public’s protection. The promptitude with which they have acted is to be praised, but the question that is exercising the minds of many parents is that of whether the measures already taken are drastic enough. Up to the present no restrictions have been placed on travel to and from the areas in which poliomyelitis has been reported, and among many people in the South Island there is already grave concern that travellers from the north might carry the infection into southern towns and cities. It will be recalled that when this disease was last prevalent in Otago the most stringent precautions were taken to prevent its being carried outside the province. Worried parents were not permitted to remove their children to what were considered places of safety, and a good many of them feel now that the discipline to which they were then subjected in order that the outbreak could be controlled might well be imposed on the. people in those areas in which poliomyelitis is present. Any action that the authorities might have in mind to restrict travel would have to be taken quickly, since the closing of schools in the North Island will enable many families to move away from the infected areas. As far as the South Island is concerned the situation at present calls for watchfulness, but certainly not for alarm. In view of the fact that a wider incidence of the disease cannot be discounted, however, it would be foolish for parents to disregard the need for commonsense precautions, or to overlook the possibility that their opportunities for holiday travel might be substantially curtailed.