View report page

ANNUAL REPORT
OF THE MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH, 1945.
In presenting the annual report for 1945 the opportunity
has been taken of including' the statistical material
from the department which lias not been presented to
the Council during the years 1939 to 1944 iclusive. It
is felt that this should now be placed in a composite
form for the Council's information, for reference and for
the normal work of the Health Department.
A summary of vital statistics for 1945 follows on
these opening remarks and is based on an estimation
from the Registrar General of the population for midyear
1945 of 70,040. By the end of 1945 the population
was 81,110. This is a return to the" pre-war figures as
a result of the return of evacuees and men and women
from the forces plus the natural increase in population.
Despite 6 years of war conditions the general health
of the Borough as compared with the rest of the country
was good in 1945.
The Infantile Mortality rate of 33.9 is quite comparable
with the figure for 1944 of 31.37, but we know
that a goal of 25 can be reached in this area.
The stillbirth rate also compares favourably with
that of England and Wales.
The low death rate of 9 • 27 is due to the youth of the
population, but is somewhat artifically raised by the
number of air raid casualties early in tlie year.
The birth rate shews a slight decrease on that of
1944, but is relatively high considering the extreme upset
in domestic conditions during the VI and Y2 attacks
in the late summer of 1944 and early months of 1945.
The low notification rate for Diphtheria justifies the
large amount of work which has been done in immunisation
against Diphtheria since it first commenced in this
Borough in 1937.
Inoculation against whooping cough ceased during
1945 as it became impossible to obtain what is considered
a suitable material but although the notification rate -is
much lower than in the rest of the country I am not
prepared to state categorically that the whooping cough
vaccination campaign which resulted in a total of 4,703
children under the age of 5 being vaccinated since 1942,
is the cause.
There were no deaths in 1945 in connection with
childbirth.
7