Paludrine Under

A Cloud

Medical Problems In New Guinea

Prom Our Special Correspondent

Suva, May 2.

IN a chat which I had here with the New Guinea Director of Health, Dr.

Gunther, I learned that the anti malaria drug Paludrine —developed during the war, and for which great claims have since been made—is not a success.

It is not the fault of the scientists. All that they said was true, when they said it.

Paludrine, when first used, is a cure and a prophylactic. The trouble is the extra ordinary adaptability of the Anopheles mosquito.

It has been found in New Guinea, and in other malarial countries, that after the malaria germ has been encountering the Paludrine drug for a time, it somehow develops a resistance to the drug, and per sons infected suffer severely from malaria.

There have been announcements to this effect, lately, in the medical journals.

Paludrine has not been abandoned. Under some conditions, it is being used, satis factorily—but its usefulness apparently is limited.

There is thought to be much promise in a new drug now being developed in America —“chloro” somethings—but the efficacy of this is not yet completely proven—and, in any event, it is a dollar commodity, and difficult to buy.

So New Guinea now is going back to the old The chief trouble is that owing to political troubles in the East Indies and to the knock which quinine manufacture took when Paludrine came into popular use, the available supplies of quinine are not large. New Guinea wants more rather than less anti-malaria drugs just now, because of the obligation to protect the Highlands natives. Large numbers of natives now are going as indentured labourers from the Central plateaus, where they are free of malaria and tuber culosis, to the coastal areas; and the medical officers are obliged to give all of them special treatment, to guard them against both diseases.

The Papua-NG administration is again giving very special attention to the cul tivation of the cinchona tree, from the bark of which quinine is made. There are a limited number of trees, introduced from East Indies, growing well in New Guinea, and it is hoped to build them up into serviceable plantations.

Smallpox Barrier Planned

rE medical department has another headache in the presence of bad epidemics of smallpox in East Indies —especially in Java. Failing adequate precautions in the Indies—and the change-over from Dutch to Indonesian control does not encourage hope of efficiency in that direction —this plague could easily break into Western New Guinea, and become a major disaster.

The Australian New Guinea medical service is proposing to put in a barrier be tween Western and Eastern New Guinea by vaccinating all the natives in a 50miles strip along the Dutch-Australian border. It will be a colossal task, because the border runs right through the centre of New Guinea, through “uncontrolled” and only partly-explored country.