HOME HEALTH GUIDE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 August 1941, Page 2

HOME HEALTH GUIDE

TREATMENT OF COMMON COMPLAINTS.

DIPHTHERIA.

(Prepared and Issued by the Health

Department.)

If your child has a sore throat, pearly grey in colour, a high temperature and a headache, call the doctor immediately. The chances are that it is diphtheria, and this is a disease with .which the slightest risk must not be taken. It can cause death within three or four days. The younger the child, the more dangerous the infection. Of course, it may not be diphtheria—it may be a touch of acute sore throat —but always suspect the worst until, it is proved otherwise.

The diphtheria germ specialises in young children, particularly in the years between one and five. Up to 15 years, the danger is always present, but over that age the natural resistance is usually sufficiently strong to overcome infection.

In New Zealand in recent years there has been a gradual decline in the incidence of this disease, but it is still distressingly high. The last available return shows that, in the school years from five to 15, one child in every 32 who caught the disease died. In the one-to-five years group, one in every 11 died.

The Health Department is hoping that, as a result of its diphtheria immunisation campaign, this disease will be completely eradicated. It is inviting parents to have children under seven years of age protected by injection of anti-toxin, and together with the Plunket Society, it is offering this protection at pre-school clinics. There is no charge for these services.

After six months of age a baby may be protected. Parents are advised to have their children protected in their first year, and before their second birthday. At this stage the injections arc happily taken, and cause no upset.

Tests taken on thousands of New Zealand children show that 92 per cent of the children between the ages of one and five years are unprotected, and 70 per cent of those between five and 15 years are’ similarly vulnerable. If artificial protection can be given in these dangerous years, surely it is worth while. It can be done with the parents’ co-operation. In Toronto, Canada, last year, there was not a single case of diphtheria among its 800,000 citizens. Every newborn child is immunised at the age of six months, and eighty per cent of the city’s school children have received injections.