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Smallpox—No cases of smallpox were notified during the year.
Whooping cough—There was a fall in the number of notifications in 1964 to 1,401 from
the figure of 2,601 in 1963. The incidence of this disease fluctuates widely from year to
year, so it is necessary to study changes over a period of years if a trend is to be found.
In figure 2, showing the whooping cough notifications in London in the last 20 years, the
decline in incidence is impressive, although it did not occur in a dramatic fashion. The
number of children immunised against whooping cough each year is also shown. The
critical level of immunisation in the community appears to have been reached about
1953-4, since when incidence of whooping cough has been declining.
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