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NOTIFIABLE INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
Two thousand, three hundred and forty-one notifications
of infectious disease were received during the year and in 18
instances the patients were subsequently found not to be suffering
from the disease. This compares with 2,720 for the previous
year, with 26 amended diagnoses. The decrease was mainly due
to a reduction in the number of cases of measles which occurs
epidemically every other year. A summary of the notifications
by diseases and age groups appears on the following page.
The Public Health (Infectious Diseases) Regulations, 1953.
These Regulations, which came into operation on 1st April,
1953, revoke and substantially re-enact the former Regulations
in a form to accord with the present shape and working of the
health service. They require the notification of malaria, dysentery,
acute primary and acute influenzal pneumonia, and provide
for preventive steps against the spread of certain diseases.
The Regulations amplify the precautionary measures against
food poisoning : —
(1) by relating these (instead of to enteric fever and dysentery,
as formerly) to typhoid fever, paratyphoid fever or
other salmonella infections (which includes the diseases
previously known as enteric fever), dysentery and staphylococcal
infections likely to cause food poisoning ;
(2) by applying these measures in general to persons shown
to be carriers of these diseases as well as to persons suffering
from them ;
(3) by preventing such persons (in either class) not only from
continuing employment involving the handling of food,
as formerly, but also from entering such employment;
and
(4) by enabling a local authority to authorise the Medical
Officer of Health to issue notices in emergency, in order
to check the spread of these diseases.
In accordance with the requirements of the Regulations, a
copy of them was sent to each medical practitioner practising in
the Borough.
Diphtheria.
No confirmed case of diptheria occurred in Camberwell
during the year. Although this is the third consecutive year
free from this disease, there has been no slackening in the intensity
of the diphtheria immunisation publicity campaign.
The remarkable reduction in the incidence of this disease which
has occurred during the past few years should not be allowed to