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62
Many people are disposed to regard the present type of illness
as too trivial in nature to be worth serious attention, and in some
cases are beginning to display irritation with the administrative
measures of control of the disease.
It must be remembered that Local Authorities are charged
with a definite responsibility to control infectious diseases, and
the public should not be expected to incur any risks which
may result from any relaxation of the existing measures adopted
to check the spread of specific diseases, unless there are strong
grounds to believe that any modification of the present practice,
if effected, would be consistent with safety to the community as
a whole.
The matter is, however, of sufficient importance in my
opinion, to merit early and careful consideration from every
standpoint.
Vaccination.
The Vaccination Order, 1929, dated August 15th, 1929,
embodies changes based on the recommendations of the Rolleston
Committee of Inquiry into matters relating to vaccination.
The Minister has accordingly amended the Vaccination Orders
so far as is necessary to give effect to certain recommendations
of the Committee referred to as follows which came into operation
on October 1st last:—
(1) In place of the officially advocated four insertions, trial
shall be made of vaccination or re-vaccination in one insertion.
(2) Primary vaccination to be performed in infancy between
the ages of 2 and 6 months, as at present, and re-vaccination be
offered at the time when a child enters school (5 to 7 years) and
again on leaving (14 to 16 years).
(3) Vaccination in multiple insertions to be available for such
persons as desire to obtain the maximum protection against smallpox
obtainable at one operation.
(4) In public vaccinations parents to be informed that if in
consequence of vaccination a child requires medical attention, it
is the duty of the public vaccinator concerned to provide such
attention without cost to the parents.
(5) The Minister draws attention to the remarks in the report
of the Committee of Inquiry in which reference is made to the
occurrence of Post-Vaccinal Nervous Disease. It is pointed out
that however seldom such cases may occur, they are of serious
import and cannot fail to have an effect on vaccination, both in
its administrative and its purely medical aspects. The Committee
also refer to the extreme rarity of such manifestations, particularly
after re-vaccination and after primary vaccination in
early infancy. The Minister recognises that both in this country
and abroad post-vaccinal nervous diseases have occurred mainly
in children of school age or adolescents who had never previously