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THE HEALTH SERVICES ANDPUBLIC HEALTH ACT. 1968
PUBLIC HEALTH (INFECTIOUS DISEASES REGULATIONS
NOTIFICATION OF FOOD POISONING AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES
1.Sections 47 to 49 of the Health Services and Public Health Act 1968 and of the Public
Health (Infectious Diseases) Regulations 1968, came into force on 1st October. 1968.
Copies of these Regulations were sent to all medical practitioners concerned.
2. The principal changes affecting medical practitioners attending patients who are suffering
from or suspected to be suffering from notifiable infectious disease or from food poisoning
are:-
(a) All provisions governing the notification of infectious disease and food poisoning
are now to be found in Sections 47 to 49 of the Health Services and Public Health Act,
1968 and the Public Health (Infectious Diseases) Regulations 1968.
(b) The infectious diseases now to be notified to the medical officer of health are:-
Acute encephalitis Ophthalmia neonatorum
Acute meningitis Paratyphoid fever
Acute poliomyelitis Plague
Anthrax Relapsing fever
Cholera Scarlet fever
Diphtheria Smallpox
Dysentery Tetanus
(amoebic or bacillary) Tuberculosis
Infective jaundice Typhoid fever
Leprosy Typhus
Leptospirosis Whooping cough
Malaria Yellow fever
Measles
(c) Notification of the diseases listed below is no longer required:-
Acute influenzal pneumonia Erysipelas
Acute primary pneumonia Membranous croup
Acute rheumatism Puerperal pyrexia
(d) Responsibility for notifying a case or suspected case of food poisoning or infectious
disease rests exclusively on the medical practitioner attending the patient unless he
believes that another practitioner has already notified the case.
3. Notification fee payable to practitioners. By an order made under Section 50 of the Act
of 1968 the notification fee was increased to 5s. as from 1st October, 1968.
New books of notification forms as prescribed under Schedule 3 of the Regulations were
subsequently sent to medical practitioners.
LEAD POISONING
There were four references to the department on the subject of lead poisoning during
1968. Of these the first concerned a three year old child in hospital with a raised blood
lead level. On domiciliary enquiry it was reported that all the painted surfaces appeared
satisfactory with no evidence of their being bitten or chewed. All paint brushes and paint
cans were kept locked in a cupboard. The only significant factor which emerged was a
statement by the mother that her husband had sprayed the garden with a weed killer some
six months before. As the child had been seen to have eaten soil from time to time, a sample
of soil was taken and subsequently the public analyst reported a total lead content of 300
parts per million. Incidentally, a sister of this child attended hospital in 1963 also on
account of lead poisoning. Samples of recently painted surfaces taken at the time showed 34
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