At Rising Vd
pp. 70-71 · Read in the full issue
Fiji Alarmed
Figures
From a Suva correspondent Fiji Health authorities ai concerned with the rapid rise i the incidence of gonorrhoea i the colony. The figures hav risen steadily each year, froi 227 cases in 1961 to 784 i 1966.
ALREADY this year, to April ; there have been 250 cases re ported, and it has been predicted thj the year’s total may be somethin like 1,080. This takes into accour the fact that there has been a sligl drop in the number of cases reporte since April.
Fiji health authorities are we aware of the findings of a Worl Health Organisation committee s( up in 1962 to examine the work wide increase in YD. These revej that even with modern drugs, one VD has solidly established itself i a country it is almost impossible t control it.
The difficulty is that gonorrhoe is highly infectious and has a shoi incubation, and nowhere has it bee possible to bring a sufficiently larg number of cases and contacts to trea ment quickly enough to overtake il rapid spread once it has taken hole That the disease can spread rapidl is illustrated by the number of case which resulted from just one contac here.
The Medical Department tells th story thus: “It all started with girl who brought the infection horn from a holiday in Suva. She infecte a man at the island, who infecte another girl who passed it on to second man.
“This man in turn infected tw girls. One of these girls then passe the disease on to no fewer than seve men.
“One of the seven men infecte another girl; two passed the diseas on to their wives and two other infected two girls each.
“In all, 20 cases of gonorrhoe resulted in a few weeks from a singl source.”
During the war the annual in cidence of gonorrhoea in Fiji wa about 250, which was consider appallingly high. A special hospita was set up, where prostitutes wen treated behind a barbed-wire fence Ratu Sir Lala Sukuna issued ;
jclamation that all girls in towns o had no specific jobs were to urn to their villages, and this was
idly enforced.
[n 1961 the incidence of the disease »an to creep up again, rhere are probably several reasons the increase. In part the rise is » to the world-wide increase in ). which could be attributed to a leral slackening of morals and the reased freedom from restraint of mg people. tourism and the increase in the Tiber of visiting ships in Fiji come ier suspicion for a number of sons. One is that the heaviest rises the disease are in the country’s > seaports, Suva and Lautoka,
ere prostitution has increased.
Mcohol also plays its part, rhere have been many protests nit the increased drunkenness in colony, and particularly in Suva Friday and Saturday evenings. \nother factor is the breaking-up old social patterns and the estab iment of new ones as a result of elerated urbanisation, fhe Medical Department has been leavouring to draw attention to gravity of the situation. It has ;n issuing frank warnings, pleas suspected sufferers to seek medical dee, and lately it has been arrang talks on VD at womens and girl’s bs.
But still the figures continue to \s distinct from gonorrhoea, hilis has given no real cause for rm in Fiji. Only four cases were torted last year. But there is ibably a good reason for this, and reason might not always be with fhe Deputy Director of Medical vices. Dr. D. W. Beckett, explains t the reason for the freedom from ihilis could be that most of the >ple who might be expected to itract it probably suffered from vs in childhood. There is a ationship between the two diseases ilthough yaws is not a venereal ease —and one gives a high degree immunity to the other.
Until 10 years ago yaws was very nmon in Fiji, and so most of the lit indigenous population has a h degree of resistance to syphilis.
But children born in the last 10 irs don’t have this resistance, since vs has been virtually wiped out Fiji. When these children reach at-risk age group, statistics could mee.
Whatever the future of svohilis in i, it is gonorrhoea which is at :sent causing concern, with good ison.