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56
Infectious disease visiting
The Council employs two infectious disease visitors whose duty it is
to visit the homes of persons who are stated to be suffering from a
notifiable infectious disease. Both infectious disease visitors are state
registered nurses, and also registered fever nurses. The work they do
is in addition to visits paid by the food inspectors to cases of food
poisoning and by the district sanitary inspectors on certain other
occasions.
The work of the infectious disease visitors as agents of the medical
officer of health includes the investigation of home conditions, the
giving of advice to patients and contacts, particularly where the patient
is left at home, and in general the taking of such measures as may be
necessary to combat the spread of infection.
The following is a summary of the work in visiting infectious diseases
carried out during the year, which is in addition to the visits paid by
the sanitary inspectors referred to in table 20:—

Whooping cough
With regard to the 823 cases notified during the year a follow-up
was carried out which resulted as follows:—
1 had been confirmed as "not whooping cough" and so was not
visited;
44 were not visited as they occurred in hospitals, residential
nurseries or institutions;
1 had died before a visit could be made.
In the rest the homes were visited by the infectious disease visitors.
178 of these visits were futile in that noone was in (59 cases at the
first call, 49 cases at the second attempt, and in 7 cases at the third
attempt). In the remainder details were taken of the patient, the
possible cause of his infection, and of his method of isolation, and general
advice was given with regard to contacts and to hygiene.