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56
SECTION F.
PREVALENCE OF, AND CONTROL OVER
INFECTIOUS AND OTHER DISEASES.
General.
A total of 1,896 cases of notifiable infectious diseases (excluding
tuberculosis), were notified as against 660 during 1954, and this state
of affairs was largely brought about by the considerable increase in
the incidence of measles during the year under discussion. Although
the number of cases of this disease was large, the vast majority of
them were uncomplicated and did not give rise to any undue alarm.
Compared with some other places in the country, we must be
considered fortunate to have had only thirteen confirmed cases of
acute anterior poliomyelitis, all but one of which were paralytic,
including one fatal case. In addition, seven further cases were notified
but on investigation none of these could be confirmed. There
was therefore a total of twenty cases under supervision during the
course of the year.
Two hundred and sixty cases of whooping cough, 67 of
pneumonia, 44 of scarlet fever, 18 of dysentery, and 13 of food
poisoning came to light during the year and these, in conjunction
with the cases of measles and infantile paralysis, accounted for
most of the infectious disease notifications received during 1955, but
statistical details of notifiable infectious diseases will be found in
Tables IV and V in the Appendix.
Acute Anterior Poliomyelitis.
The first case of this disease to occur was in January, followed
by two in March and one in both April and May. Two more cases
were notified in July, and from then on until just before Christmas
the remaining ones came in at fairly regular intervals.
Further analysing these cases, we find that five of the paralytic
ones were of the Bulbar type, which is an unusually high percentage,
but from what I can glean from various sources, this seems to have
been a fairly general experience throughout the country during the
recent outbreak.