PARALYSIS OUTBREAK

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26633, 2 December 1947, Page 6

PARALYSIS OUTBREAK

South Island Not Affected By Restrictions PLUNKET ROOMS STILL OPEN The South Island is not at present affected by the restrictions which are being applied to the North Island, said Miss S. Lusk, the Plunket Society nursing adviser, yesterday, and the Plunket rooms in the South Island will be open as usual. It was unlikely that there would be any alteration to the existing services in the South Island unless the epidemic'spread from the North, in which case immediate steps would be taken. As from to-day all Plunket rooms in the North Island are to operate on the appointment system, in terms of a direction sent by Miss Lusk to all North Island branches. Official instructions have been issued to sisters that, where possible, gatherings of young babies are to be avoided in the present emergency. Mothers are not to be deprived of Plunket services, but must wait for an appointment with local Plunket sisters to attend the rooms. Visits to homes, ante-natal appointments, and pre-school clinics are unaltered. Two further cases of infantile paralysis were reported in the Auckland district yesterday, states a Press Association message. They were both small children. Seventeen positive cases, 16 of them children aged up to 10 years, and four suspected cases aged up to 14 years, are now in the Auckland Hospital. The number of suspected cases varies from day to day as some have proved negative.

SERIOUS DISEASE

INFORMATIVE PAMPHLET DISTRIBUTION TO DOCTORS P.A. WELLINGTON, Dec. 1. A pamphlet containing the latest information about poliomyelitis (infantile paralysis) is being sent to all New Zealand medical practitioners by the Department of Health. The pamphlet has been prepared by the department after consultation with joint representatives of the British Medical Association (Ngw Zealand branch), the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, and Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. It emphasises that the treatment in ea'ch individual case should be based on sound clinical judgment and that the medical man in charge of the case should have the responsibility of' deciding what form the treatment should take.

The''disease is described as a virus type, which may attack any part of the central nervous system and sometimes, although not usually, results in paralysis..

The sources of infection are nose and throat discharges of an infected person. Bowel discharges

also contain the virus. The probable mode of transmission is through nose or mouth, the virus often passing from persons whose infection is sub-clinincal or too slight to be diagnosed.

Although virus has been found in flies subjech to faecal., contamination, states the pamphlet, there is no good evidence of insects serving as carriers. Neither is there reliable evidence that the disease is water-borne. In an article published recently by the American Medical’ Association, however, Dr Albert B. Sabin, a recognised authority on poliomyelites, states that during an epidemic measures designed to minimise contamination of fopd by flies, whether in stores or in homes, are reasonable and warranted. He considers, on the other hand, that measures taken to minimise spread by droplet infection such as the closing of theatres or churches are unwarranted, A peculiar circumstance noted by Dr Sabin is the fact that during the last 50 years epidemics have occurred with the greatest frequency and ( severity in, the very countries in which sanitation and hygiene have undoubtedly made their greatest advances, Until recently poliomyelitis was practically unknown in China and Japan. The incubation period, states the Health Department’s pamphlet, is cori.sidered 'to be from seven to fourteen days. The period of communicability appears to be covered by. the latter part of the incubation period and the first week or two of the disease—possibly much longer in a few cases. If paralysis does occur it is usually after the disease is well on its way. , Preliminary symptoms usually precede the true pre-paralytic stage ny one or more days. In some cases the symptoms clear up, and for two or three days the patient feels comparatively ' well. These symptoms are rather indefinite, and in a'child may be represented by nothing more than a feeling of being “ out of sorts.” At the true pre-paralytic stage there may- be severe headache and aching or pains ail over the body, with stiffness in one limb, and the temperature may be as high as 103 degrees. A high standard of nursing is required during the acute stage of the disease, and the patient must be impressed with the fact that be or she should make no muscular effort.

SOLAR ACTIVITY

RELATION TO POLIOMYELITIS INTERESTING INVESTIGATIONS For some time past Mr D. C. Berry, F.R.A.S., co-director of the BerryThomson Observatory, has been interested in the _ apparent relation between solar activity, such as sunspots and such disturbances, which occur in cycles of approximately 11 years, and the apparent cycle of major epidemics of acute poliomyelitis in New Zealand. These have occurred, as observed by a Daily Times reporter on a graph prepared by Mr Berry, within a year or two of the so-called sunspot maximum. During this sunspot maximum there is an excess of the normal ultraviolet radiation from the sun, and this may have some effect on the poliomyelitis virus., Mr Berry emphasised that his investigations had been made as an astronomer and not as a medical

authority, but as an outcome he has now written to the Commonwealth Solar Observatory in Canberra, to get the report on ultra-violet radiation from the sun over the last 12 years. If it were found that the maximum excess of the ultra-violet radiation over .the normal ultra-violet radiation occurred at the same time as the maximum numebr of cases of poliomyelitis, Mr Berry believes that medical men might then have something on which to base research. The maximum ages of the victims in the 1936-37 infantile paralysis epidemic in Otago were around the eight and nine-year-old group, members of which were born shortly after the 1920 epidemic. Investigations concerning the three major epidemics of 1916-17, 1925, and 1936-37 showed that the maximum number of cases occurred during autumn, although in Otago the maximum number of cases was found in December, 1936.

General measures during epidemics recommended in the pamphlet are:— Children should be protected as far as possible against unnecessary contact with other persons, especially those outside'their own homes. Nose, throat, and possibly dental operations on. children should be postponed Physical strain in children and unnecessary travel and visiting should be avoided.