Alarming TB

Incidence In P. Moresby Hanuabada Village a Plague Spot

IN comparison with the islands of Polynesia and the Colony of Fiji, where the high incidence of tuber culosis is well known, little has ever been recorded of the prevalence of the disease in Papua and New Guinea.

Recent investigations by a well-known New Guinea doctor, however, indicate that TB has assumed alarming propor tions in Papua. Port Moresby is the centre of the infection; but a stretch of coast for 50 miles in either direction appears to be almost as bad.

This doctor is of the opinion that among the villages around Port Moresby —and particularly in Hanuabada —50 per cent, of the inhabitants should be TB suspects. The chief Army medical officer in the area, before the resumption of Civil Administration, is believed to have drawn the attention of the new Government to this state of affairs, and recommended a mass X-ray survey of the people in the affected areas. But so far nothing appears to have been done.

The present TB hospital (which is situated on the coast) is unsuitable for treatment, and it is believed that much more effective treatment could be under taken if it were removed to the Sogeri Plateau, where the educational training centre has been established —with 180 trainees for the first term.

The humid conditions of the Papuan coast are not ideal for TB treatment.

But at. Sogeri the air is good, and fresh food and milk are available.

It would be interesting to know by what percentage the incidence of TB has increased in Papua during the war years, and to what factors can be attri buted the remarkable prevalence of the disease in those areas which are re garded as the most “civilised” in Papua.

IN the meantime, it is evident that the village of Hanuabada is a plague spot. This marine village, known to every tourist* who ever went Port Moresbywards, was destroyed in the early part of the Pacific war and the inhabitants evacuated inland. After the danger period passed, the natives clamoured to return, and this was per mitted. Hanuabada was built again— with total lack of supervision, and the result now is the worst kind of tropical slum, and a breeding-place for every germ from tuberculosis to typhus and dysentry.

Hanuabada land is said to have been subdivided so many times by death legacies that there is a claimant for every 10 square yards of it. Native land rights should be respected, but Hanua bada has reached such a state of over crowding and filth that nothing short of

burning it down and establishing the villagers elsewhere, offers any solution.

The Provisional Administration has had, as yet, little time to get into its stride. Labour shortages, lack of materials, the chaos that came in the wake of Departmental interference at the time of the change-over from military to civil administration, all these things have added to the tremendous task of reconstruction. But it should not be for gotten that among Canberra’s promises for a new order in Papua-New Guinea was one relating to greatly augmented medical services for the natives.

Throughout the history of the Pacific tuberculosis has marched side by side with encroaching Europeanisation, and the report of this medical officer seems to suggest that history is repeating itself in Papua, in that area in closest touch with European influences.