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10
PREVALENCE AND CONTROL OF INFECTIOUS AND OTHER DISEASES
The declining incidence and mortality of infectious diseases such as diphtheria, scarlet fever
measles, whooping cough and typhoid fever in the past 50 years is not so much a reflection of better treatment
as of improving living standards. Better housing and better nutrition, improved ventilation, and smaller
families, have helped to increase resistance and reduce the possibilities of spread of infection. Health
visitors and sanitary inspectors have played an invaluable role in health education and in improving hygiene.

Diphtheria
A boy of 5 years and a woman of 27 years, two of the five cases of diphtheria notified in 1954,
were confirmed; they were unimmunised.
Measles
126 cases were notified in 1954 (124 confirmed). There were no deaths from measles during the
year.
Whooping Cough
295 cases were notified and confirmed, with one death in a child of three months.
The incidence of whooping cough was the lowest of the last five years, but the reduction cannot
be attributed to whooping cough vaccination (see report for 1953).
Pneumonia and Influenza
102 cases of pneumonia were notified (97 confirmed). There were 60 deaths from bronchopneumonia,
lobar pneumonia and pneumonia (unspecified), and 4 deaths from influenza.