IMMUNISATION CAMPAIGN

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 38, 15 February 1939, Page 5

IMMUNISATION CAMPAIGN

TO COMBAT DIPHTHERIA. WELLINGTON SCHOOL CHILDREN WELLINGTON, Feb. 13 To combat the rising tide of diphtheria in Wellington, officers of the Health Department within the next few weeks will undertake an immunisation compaign among senool children. This will take the form o> three small painless injections of anatoxin. The consent of parents is being sought for treatment. Anatoxin is prepared from diphtheria bacilli grown in a laboratory. The medium in which the bacilli have been grown is filtered and treated to remove all toxic effects. Minute doses of this liquid injected into human beings produce immunity from the disease. Dr. B. Wyn Irwin, medical officer of health in Wellington, who will be in charge of the campaign, in an interview to-day appealed to parents to consent to children receiving the treatment. Diphtheria was still too prevalent .n New Zealand, he said. The Dominion figures for the first five weeks of 1939 were almost double those for the same period in 1938, which itself had not been a good year. From 1932 to 1937 notifications totalled 4060 and it was surprising that 91 per cent, occurred in the North Island. The rising tendency in the returns since 1934, the lowest year since the disease became notifiable, was commented on by Dr. Irwin, who said that the department was anxious for that reason, to immunise as many children as possible ,