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17
The following table, shown in the 1951 report is repeated to emphasise the
relative risks of diphtheria in children immunised and not immunised.

In comparing diphtheria in immunised and non-immunised children over the
six-year period 1947-52, it is probable that over the period, slightly more than half
the children under five were in an immunised state and at least three quarters of the
school children. The 24 non-immunised school children who contracted diphtheria,
therefore, belong to a group numbering not more than one third of the immunised
school children.
It therefore seems that over this period, a non-immunised child was about five
times more liable to contract diphtheria than an immunised child. Further, of the
79 Islington children who have had diphtheria over the past six years, five have
died, and none of these five was immunised. This is in agreement with all previous
extensive experience of immunisation in Islington. It has not been possible, in spite
of careful records having been kept (although these cannot be quite complete) to
trace the death from diphtheria of any child immunised in the Borough who has
satisfactorily completed an immunisation course since 1936.
With regard to the immunised children who contracted diphtheria, examination
of the records shows that in nearly all cases immunisation had been completed three,
four or five years previously, and a booster injection at about school entry age might
have diminished the subsequent risk still further.

Diphtheria Immunisation.
Dr. B. E. Sharpe, Divisional Medical Officer, London County Council, has
kindly supplied the following figures in respect of Islington children for the current
year.