HEALTH POLICY.

Wairarapa Age, 17 March 1927, Page 6

HEALTH POLICY.

NEW INTELLIGENCE SYSTEM PROPOSED.

(SOUTH PACIFIC CO-OPERATION

MELBOURNE, March 16.

Embodying resolutions which were passed by the International Pacific Health Conference, Melbourne, in December, a report has been tabled in tne Federal House of Representatives. A feature of this report is the recommendation that a special system of intelligence should be established between the health administrations of the islands in the Pacific south of the Equator, and between longitude .140 cast and 140 west. The object of the service would be the better prevention of the spread of epidemic diseases and the improvement of public health measures generally. It would supplement but not replace the work of the Eastern Bureau of the League of Nations health organisation at Singapore. The

region covered by it is known as the Austral Pacific regional zone, and would include Australia, New Zealand*, New Guinea, Papua, Solomon Islands, New Caledonia, New Hebrides, the Gilbert and Ellis Islands, Fiji, Samoa, Cook Islands, the Tahiti Group, and Tonga. The Commonwealth would keep in touch with sources of information outside the regional zone in connection with epidemic diseases which might affect the countries of the Pacific. Recommendations dealing with quarantine co-operation between counties in the regional zone were also agreed upon.

The conference recommends the consideration of the possibility of establishing a modern laboratory in association with the central health administration of each territory, and equipping a vessel as a mobile laboratory for investigation and medical patrol work. -(P.A.).