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111
were kept under surveillance for 5 days. A total of 147 persons
were so observed.
Dysentery
This disease is usually characterised by diarrhoea, fever and,
to a lesser extent, vomitting. Although modern methods of treatment are effective and usually rapid, nevertheless the disease has
become a serious nuisance and difficult to control. It is normally
mild but in infants, young children and the very old it can produce serious illness and debility, especially if the patients are
already slightly below normal health. In adults it is an irksome
inconvenience and, if they work in the food trade, it can cause
economic hardship.
Some 55 notifications of dysentery were received during the
year, a total which is 26 higher than for 1970. Thirty-one of these
cases occurred in an outbreak at Goldie Leigh Hospital among
patients admitted primarily as "long term" cases. Of the remaining 24 cases, 2 were also admitted for hospital treatment.
Ophthalmia Neonatorum
There were no cases notified during the year under review, a
situation similar to that for 1970.
Poliomyelitis
As with the previous year, no case was recorded during 1971.
Completed primary poliomyelitis inoculations carried out during the current year numbered 2,938, 454 of which were by
general practitioners. Reinforcing doses totalled 3,657, again with
472 being given by general practitioners.
Polio Vaccine Trial
In common with several other London Boroughs, the Council
agreed to assist in the assessment of a new oral polio vaccine
which had been approved by the Committee on the Safety of
Drugs but which required further trials to test its immunising
efficacy. This vaccine, it was hoped, would prove to be even more
valuable than the well-tested preparation in current use.
The Greenwich trial, planned in 1970 to take place during the
following year, did not alter the current immunisation programme for infants.
Acute Meningitis
Of the total of 17 cases notified, 16 were admitted to hospital.
There were 2 instances of pneumococcal infection (one notified
posthumously) and one case each of streptococcal meningitis and