Fiji Quarantine

Relaxed

Outbreak of Poliomyelitis in BSI Admitted

Prom Our Own Correspondent

Suva, Jan. 19.

ABOUT 16 cases of poliomyelitis have been reported in the British Solomon Islands Protectorate. Vague rumours about the outbreak were confirmed by a “Fiji Times” announcement, backed by a seemingly reluctant and very brief com ment extracted from the Western Pacific High Commission. (It appears to be one of the Commission’s most cherished tra ditions that publicity might have calami tous effects on the British Empire.) There is a suspicion that the disease is endemic in parts of the Solomons, but this has in no way allayed the alarm of many people in Fiji over the relaxation of quarantine at a time when New Zea land, Australia and the Solomons are all infected areas.

Despite the fact that the epidemic in New Zealand shows no sign of waning, people from the Dominion who come to Fiji are subjected only to “medical sur veillance,” whatever that may be, as an effective safeguard.

Western Samoa still refuses to allow any passenger from New Zealand to land, but, barring the Christmas quarantine of 40-odd children, Fiji, has done little.

Further, the Medical Department ap pears to out undue stress on the mislead ing word “infantile” when it is clear that poliomyelitis is no longer confined to infants.

Public opinion to-day is sharply de fined: Fiji, and more especially the Fijians, have suffered too much in the past from needlessly - introduced epi demics.