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Slaughter of Animals.
There are no slaughterhouses in the Borough but in the grounds of the Zoological Society of London
for many years there has been a knacker's yard, licensed by the Council, where animals are slaughtered
for feeding purposes. Twelve inspections were made and conditions found to be satisfactory.
SECTION F.—INFECTIOUS AND OTHER DISEASES—PREVALENCE
AND CONTROL
There was a decrease in the number of cases of infectious diseases reported in the Borough, 277
notifications being received against 529 the previous year. This was mainly accounted for by a drop
in the incidence of measles, 107 cases being notified against 422 in 1961. Only 2 cases of whooping
cough were reported, against 12 in 1961 and 53 in 1960, but dysentery cases increased from 9 to 81,
70 of which were confined to two residential homes. There was one notification of acute poliomyelitis
(paralytic) and 2 of acute encephalitis (post infectious) of which none had been reported in 1961.
Table 22, page 37, gives details of notifications and the age groups concerned.
Smallpox Contacts.
(a) A Pakistani arrived at London Airport on 25th December, 1961 and proceeded by taxi to an
address in St. Pancras. He developed a focal rash on 27th December and was seen in the early hours
of the following morning at the University College Hospital where a diagnosis of smallpox was made.
The patient was removed to Dartford Isolation Hospital where he subsequently died on 8th January,
1962. Four contacts on the same flight were traced to addresses in this Borough. All were visited
and two who had not recently been vaccinated were re-vaccinated. Two of these passengers left the
district almost immediately but the other two were kept under surveillance until the end of the
quarantine period. No secondary cases developed.
The publicity attending this and several other importations of a similar kind in other parts of the
country at this time resulted in a very large number of requests from the general public for vaccination.
Special vaccination clinics were organised by the London County Council. Soon after the commencement
of the outbreak the Ministry, in order to conserve the supply of lymph and to ensure proper
control, channelled all supplies through the Public Health Laboratory Service and requested doctors
to apply either direct to the Laboratory at Colindale or to their local health departments. During
this period 7,479 doses of lymph were distributed by the Department to doctors practising in the
Borough.
(6) The s.s. "Oronsay" arrived in the Thames on the 15th August, 1962, and on the same day
an Asian boy, aged 3 years, was removed from the ship and admitted to hospital suffering from
suspected modified smallpox. The boy had embarked with his family at Bombay on the 30th July
and was taken ill on the 9th August. Subsequently his brother, aged 8, and sister, aged 4, were
reported to be suffering from a similar modified form of the disease. Ninety-six other passengers
were stated to have gone to addresses in this Borough. Appropriate enquiries were made and
surveillance maintained of contacts found to be staying in the Borough. No secondary cases occurred.
Tuberculosis.
Table 22, page 37, gives information regarding primary notifications of pulmonary and non-pulmonary
tuberculosis received during the year. Table 23, page 38, shows the age and sex distribution of new
cases and of deaths from all forms of the disease, and Table 24, page 38, sets out the number of cases
on the Tuberculosis Register at the beginning and end of the year with details of the adjustments
made in respect of new cases, transfers, deaths inwards and outwards and removals due to cases cured
and deceased.
Enquiries into housing and sanitary conditions involved 116 visits by one of the women public
health inspectors to all new cases and those moving into the Borough from other areas.
Food Poisoning.
Sixteen notifications were received during the year but ten were withdrawn as the salmonella
organisms responsible were not thought to have been food-borne. Of the remaining six cases, one, in
which no organism was identified, was connected with a large outbreak in Westminster, and the others
were single cases. Salmonella typhimurium was the organism found to be responsible for two of these
but in the other three no agent was identified.