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DIPHTHERIA IMMUNISATION.
Diphtheria Immunisation is now so thoroughly accepted by
parents that our present efforts are not so much to secure
immunisation as to secure earlier immunisation in accordance with
the most up-to-date views on the subject. For the past two
years we have been advocating immunising at eight months to
save those lives that are lost from Diphtheria before the first
birthday, then a booster at two or three years of age, followed
by one or more further boosters so that the child shall have its
highest degree of protection during its early years of life. It is
of particular importance for him to have a high degree of
protection on entering school for the first time, when he has
suddenly extended his opportunities for exposure to infection.
The measure of our success in this direction is somewhat
disappointing as will be seen in Table XXIII on page 71. It
will be seen that we immunised 73 children in the under one age
group as against 98 last year. The number of single boosting
injections given in the Clinics was 52 and the number given in
the Schools was 1,651. Taking into consideration that we are
mainly confining our boosting in the schools to the children under
ten, this represents very nearly 40 per cent, of all the school
children in the district.
There were 1,169 children immunised during the year, of
whom 905 were one year or under, as against 819 last year.
There were 832 children immunised between the ages of one and
two. In 1947 there were 1,345 live births and there were 41
deaths of infants under one year of age. If we regard the
difference of 1,304 as an estimate of the available material, we
might deduce that we have immunised 64 per cent, of our
available infants during this year. It should perhaps be
mentioned once more that this is based on actual records. There
may well be a considerable number immunised by private
practitioners, for whom we have no record, especially as the
private practitioner under the National Health Service Act no
longer need apply to the department for free immunising material
but can obtain it on prescription. Another factor which convinces
us that there are more infants immunised than we have
cards for is the demand for Whooping Coush and Diphtheria
combined injections. This, at the time of writing, is now
available but for the vear 1948 anv narent wantine the combined
iniections applied to the private practitioner. We have reason to
believe that there were a considerable number of infants
immunised aeainst Diphtheria in that way.
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