View report page

53
APPENDIX II.
EXTRACTED FROM REPORT TO PUBLIC HEALTH COMMITTEE
28th JUNE, 1948.
IMMUNISATION AGAINST DIPHTHERIA.
Prevalence of Diphtheria Prior to 1938.
In the decade before the Second World War there were an average of 700 notifications
of diphtheria every year, and between 20 and 30 deaths due to the same cause.
In 1933, for example, there were 33 deaths; 1934—31 deaths; 1936—31 deaths, and
even as late as 1938 there were 23 deaths. Prior to 1935 I can trace no record of any
immunisation being done or offered through the Council's services, although no
doubt a few children were being dealt with by private doctors, but this cannot have
amounted to very much.
In 1935 Mrs. Mortimer Wolf, at the East Islington Welfare Centre, offered
immunisation to children under 5 attending the Centre and there is a record of over
50 children who were so immunised during the year.
In 1936 I commenced the Council's first municipal immunisation clinic at the
Town Hall, shortly after my appointment. The first clinic was held in November
of that year and I conducted one session per week. From November to the end of
the year there were 266 attendances and over 200 children were immunised. The
public response was so rapid that in the following year—the first complete year of
municipal immunisation—there were over 2,000 attendances and it was found
necessary to have an additional clinic which was held at the Miriam Price Coleman
Day Nursery. The attendances continued to increase rapidly and in 1938 they had
again doubled with over 4,000 attendances and over 1,000 children immunised in the
Borough.
As mentioned previously, there were 23 deaths in this year from diphtheria
but not one of these was in an immunised child.
During the early part of the war the dislocation of services and the movement of
population was so great that clinics were unfortunately suspended. A few were
held in the early part of 1940, but the clinics were not resumed until January, 1941.
The Local Health Authorities, in their campaign against diphtheria, were now fully
supported by the publicity of the Ministry of Health, broadcasts, national press
propaganda, etc. This stimulated the local results very considerably and the
attendances of children and cases of diphtheria are shown in the following table:—
Attendances No. of Cases No. of Cases
of children Notified Confirmed No. of Deaths
1941 15,860 174 - 11
1942 23,520 201 - 2
1943 33,618 188 - 9
1944 19,494 94 38 2
1945 16,947 86 45 3
1946 16,296 137 50 Nil.
1947 17,659 72 19 1
Plans were arranged to commence in 1944 the first diphtheria immunisation
mobile clinic in London, and one of the first in the country. The object of the
mobile clinic was to offer clinic facilities to those mothers who had difficulty in bringing
their children to the Council's permanent clinics, but unfortunately the German
aerial bombardment of London interfered with the plan for the mobile clinic, which
had to be postponed. It began successfully, however, immediately at the close of the
European war and has played a successful part in the immunisation campaign every
summer since then.
It is estimated that 75 per cent. of the school children and 50 per cent. of children
under 5 are now immunised against diphtheria, so that the child who is not protected
against diphtheria is in the minority rather than the reverse. Diphtheria immunisation
in Islington is now something which is taken for granted by the great majority
of parents in the same way as are other services for the benefit of their children.