INCIDENCE OF T.B.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 June 1938, Page 7

INCIDENCE OF T.B.

PLANS FOR EXTENDED SURVEY. ACTION BY MEDICAL RESEARCH COUNCIL. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, June 25. Proposals for a statistical survey of the incidence of tuberculosis in New Zealand have been made to the Medical Research Council, which has appointed a committee to undertake the survey. Important recommendations already made to the council, and approved by it, are: — “That tuberculosis other than of the respiratory system be made a notifiable disease. “That arrangements be made-for the ‘typing’ of bacilli from cases of nonrespiratory tuberculosis, and possibly from cases of pulmonary tuberculosis. “That it be made a rule that all entrants to the nursing profession in New Zealand be subjected to the Mantoux test and be X-rayed, the same procedure to be carried out at either six-monthly or 12-monthly intervals for some years.” For some years the Otago Medical School has been anxious to do the “typing" of bacilli or non-respiratory tuberculosis, of which more than 700 cases (20 per cent bovine) are treated annually in the public hospitals of the Dominion. The council has been recommended to investigate the possibility of having this work carried out in Christchurch in co-operation with the committee administering the Travis bequest fund. With tuberculosis other than of the respiratory system made notifiable the medical officers of health throughout New Zealand will be made aware of the cases in their districts and. with their co-operation, a sufficient number of specimens should, in the committee's opinion, be available to keep a research worker employed. The testing of nurses for tuberculosis is carried out in some of the main hospitals, but it is considered that it should apply universally. The chairman of the committee which will undertake the survey is Dr T. R. Ritchie, Director of the Division of Public Hygiene, and the other members are Dr T. W. J. Johnson (Auckland) and Dr H. B. Turbott, medical officer of Health at Hamilton. Dr Johnson was one of the three members of a committee which in 1928 investigated the prevention and treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis in New Zealand and Dr Turbott carried out research into tuberculosis among Maoris of the East Cape district under a grant from the Dorothy Temple Cross Research Fellowship fund. Further suggestions for social and field work will be discussed by the committee before recommendations are made to the Medical Research Council.