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PUBLIC HEALTH ACT, 1936, SECTION 172.
PUBLIC HEALTH (PREVENTION OF TUBERCULOSIS)
REGULATIONS, 1926.
No action has been required under these powers during recent years.
NON-NOTIFIABLE INFECTIOUS DISEASE.
The group of non-notifiable infectious diseases accounts for very
few deaths, with the exception of influenza, to which 2 deaths were
attributed in 1948.
There was only one death in children under two years of age from
infantile diarrhoea.
Apart from the death returns, the only information as to the presence
of outbreaks of non-notifiable infectious disease is obtained from the
returns from the nurseries and public elementary schools. As judged by
these, chicken pox was most prevalent in Kenley (46) and Old Coulsdon
(25) in January and February, and in Purley (60) and Selsdon (46) from
April to July.
In 1947 Selsdon School had had 50 cases of mumps towards the end
of the year but the outbreak soon ceased in 1948, only 10 more cases
being reported, mostly in January, with odd cases in June and October.
Similarly Sanderstead only had a few isolated cases, but the Purley schools
produced 40 cases chiefly in April/July, and Kenley (17) in the second half
of the year. The disease was, however, most prevalent in the Chipstead
Valley where 29 cases occurred in October/November, together with 7
in the Coulsdon Nursery school in November/December and 32 at
Smitham in December.
Only a very few cases of " German measles " were reported and these
were scattered over the District, some doubtless being mild cases of scarlet
fever. Fortunately the cat ringworm which was so common in Old
Coulsdon in 1947 died out, only 2 cases being reported during the early
part of the year.
Home visitation and exclusion from school are still the two chief
methods relied upon to prevent or postpone the onset of the majority of
the above-mentioned diseases until the most favourable age is reached
at which they can be withstood.
Treatment in hospital is provided when required owing to social or
physical complications being present, but of these admissions records are
rarely received.
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