PhD Thesis - ResearchSpace@Auckland - The University of Auckland

programme. 80 In addition there was the guarded attitude of the public, many of whom
were still not confident enough to have their children immunised when the
opportunity arose.
In contrast, Australia enjoyed much more success with their immunisation campaigns.
By 1958 more than 95 percent of all schoolchildren in Australia had been immunised
with Australian-produced Salk vaccine. 81 In February 1956 the results of the Canadian
campaign were released which showed that incidence of paralytic polio in immunised
children (those who received two doses) was 0.54 per 100,000 whilst for
unimmunised children the rate was 5.76 per 100,000. 82 Emboldened by this success,
1,800,000 children under ten had received one dose of vaccine before the start of the
1956 polio season, with 90 percent of this number receiving at least two. 83
Countries such as Australia and Canada, who had experienced severe polio epidemics
for much of the twentieth century, were keen uptakers of the polio vaccine despite the
adverse publicity the vaccine had received because of Cutter. In contrast, in Britain,
whose polio epidemics did not start until 1947, parents did not have the same fear of
the disease and many had declined immunisation for their children, preferring to
watch and wait rather than take the risk. It was not until the death of Birmingham
City and England footballer Jeff Hall from polio in 1959 ‘that the message got
through’ and the British began to accept polio immunisation. 84
Immunisation Campaigns in New Zealand
The Salk immunisation campaigns in New Zealand were dictated totally by the supply
of vaccine available. It usually came in small batches and the Department decided the
fairest way of allocating it was to offer it to children on an age basis. The Polio
Vaccine Committee recommended that nine-year-olds be immunised first, with any
spare vaccine to be given to eight-year-olds. It had originally been decided to offer
vaccine to the five to nine age group but this was not now possible as Glaxo UK could
80
U. Lindner, S. Blume, ‘Vaccine Innovation and Adoption’, p.437.
81
J. Goldsmid, The Deadly Legacy. Australian History and Transmissible Disease, Kensington, 1988,
p.63. In 1958 the immunisation programme was extended to cover 15 to 45 year olds.
82
C. J. Rutty, ‘Do Something!…Do Anything!’, p.355.
83
ibid., p.362.
84
T. Gould, A Summer Plague. Polio and its Survivors, p.173.
140