XN000022-1972-08-15 — Page 8

- 8.

Tuesday, August 15, 1972

DR. CHOA GIVES SECOND WARNING ON SERIOUS MEASLES COMPLICATIONS

Parents in Hong Kong should stop clinging to their traditional

belief that every child should be made to go through an attach of measles,

because this was wrong and dangerous.

Instead they should co-operate with the Medical and Health

Department to see that is campaign for the immunisation of every child

against the disease ended in 100 per cent success.

Only then, the Director of Medical and Health Services, Dr. G.H.

Choa, said today, could the danger of an epidemic of measles in Hong

Kong be prevented. He estimated that at least 60 per cent of susceptible children in the population had to be immunised or the threat of an epidemic

sould not be ruled out.

He told a meeting of the Rotary Club of Hong Kong that parents here already acknowledged that diphtheria, poliomyelitis and tuberculosis were serious diseases, and accordingly accepted preventive measures against

them for their children.

But they rated measles as inevitable and not serious, and therefore the appeal for immunisation through the years had largely been pet with

indifference.

"The danger of measles," Dr. Choa explained, "lies in the complications, such as bronchitis, pneumonia, middle ear infection and encephalitis, which may arise. It is because of these complications that measles still carries a mortality rate, and some of these complications leave a permanent mark on the children even after they have recovered they could become deaf or

mentally retarded."

/He