SPREAD OF MEASLES
HOW ISLANDS EPIDEMIC BEGAN. RETURNING NATIVES CARRY INFECTION. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) AUCKLAND, This Day. “Eight Rarotongans returning home after being cured of leprosy at Makogai, arrived at Auckland some months ago. One showed signs of disease. It was thought to be smallpox and he was placed in hospital here. It was found, however, to be only chickenpox. but while in the city some of the natives contracted measles and that was how the present epidemic of measles began in the islands,” said Lieutenant-Colonel F. W. W. Dawson, Medical Officer of Health, at New Plymouth, who returned this morning by the Matua from Rarotonga, where he has been assisting in combating disease.
The trouble started in February, when the returned natives thought they had a recurrence of leprosy and kept in hiding. Their friends also contracted measles and hid them. A big dance was held and so the epidemic was flourishing when attention was given to it. Up to the time Lieu-tenant-Colonel Dawson left, there were 600 cases and 150 in hospital.
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Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 August 1938, Page 6
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174SPREAD OF MEASLES Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 August 1938, Page 6
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