INFLUENZA SCOURGE.

Taranaki Daily News, 12 March 1921, Page 12

INFLUENZA SCOURGE.

X THE BRITISH VIEW. NEW ZEALAND HEALTH EXPERTS OPTIMISTIC. Holding that this Dominion was well “inoculated” by the influenza epidemic o-f 1918, the experts of the New Zealand Health Department, on being interviewed in regard to the report of the British Health Ministry on influenza, took a more optimistic view of the situation than that cabled from England. Jhe pessimism expressed by the Ministry of Health, it was pointed out, is based on the ground that, in spite of the experience of the last few years, we have not advanced in knowledge of the nature of, and therefore the methods of dealing with, diseases of the influenza type. The Health Department was not inclined to view gloomily the outlook in New Zealand, firstly, because the coun. try underwent a process of inoculation during 1918 the effect of which must last for some considerable time, because the spread of the infection then was so great that it cannot but leave its influence behind. In this respect we are possibly more fortunate than countries which have a more crowded population, because the very cause which led to the spread of the outbreak—the previous immunity of large parts of the population—has now led to the immunity. That is to say that the people in sparse-ly-settled districts who had previously avoided contracting influenza were especially afflicted by it in 1918, because the germ came, so to speak, to new ground; but now those people, having been affected by the epidemic, will not present the same source of danger.

Another matter which makes for optimism is that we no longer have those abnormal conditions of population on which were prevalent in 1918. There is little doubt that the massing of troops, ■more especially of troops from country districts which hftd not undergone the normal process of immunising which persons who live in crowded conditions must undergo, must have been responsible very largely for the abnormal increase of virulence which was experienced In the epidemic of 1918. The movement of large bodies of men from one country to another, especially under the crowded conditions necessarily existing on troopships, must also he regarded as a source of danger. Then, again, the reduction of resistance which large bodies of the population had to undergo in wartime must be considered. Except for portions - of Southern and Central Europe, the conditions of privation which produced this reduction of resistance do not now obtain. Certainly they do not prevail in New Zealand. " None of the other conditions specified is mow in existence to any extent, and therefore there is not now the opportunity for the organism of the disease to exist in the surroundings which would enable it to increase to abnormal virulence.

The cable from England, as published on Thursday morning, was ty? follows:—“The Ministry of Health has issued the first intensive study of the influenza scourge. It states that the cause of the pandemic is still an unsolved problem, and the immediate outlook does not inspire confidence. Until a universal improvement in the standard of comfort and conditions of life is secured there will be no prospect of effectively mitigating the incidence of this disease. Other diseases have been brought hinder control, but influenza still eludes i/s.”