London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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Barking 1954

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Barking]

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So far as protection from diphtheria was concerned, the "combined"
method gave better results than other workers had reported
with the A.P.T. issued by the Ministry of Health. The separate method,
using a prophylactic called P.T.A.P. (which had been used in Barking
for many years instead of the Ministry A.P.T.) gave even better results.
These are summarized in the table below which show the failures
with each method.
Prophylactic Failures per 10,000 injections .
A.P.T. (Ministry of Health) 30
Combined Diphtheria/
Whooping Cough 6
P.T.A.P. Barking 3
Since the results with A.P.T. have always been accepted as
satisfactory surely those using the combined prophylactic are more
so? Against whooping cough there is little to chose between the two
methods, so it would seem that your 1946 policy of adopting the
"combined” immunization has been fully vindicated. We naturally
hope the County policy will be changed since parents not unnaturally
prefer their babies only to have the three injections instead of five.
Our thanks are due to Dr. Holt of the Wright Fleming Institute
for the free supply of combined prophylactic (W.D.P.(Red)) used in
this work.
The number of children receiving primary courses of immunization
during the year was as follows:—

DIPHTHERIA

Family doctorsClinicsTotal
Separate158566724
Combined with whooping cough123147270
Total Diphtheria281713994

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