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Influenza Prophylaxis
Immunisation against Influenza with an inactivated virus vaccine was
offered to the staff and employees of the Council in November 1961. 139 of
the staff were vaccinated, 422 of the manual workers. There were at that time
279 staff and 1,026 manual workers.
A note was made of absences notified as due to respiratory disease during
the period 25th November, 1961 to 30th April, 1962. Fourteen of the 140
unvaccinated staff suffered from a respiratory illness. The total absence
from work, of course, in this group was 308 days. Seventeen of the 139 vaccinated
staff suffered from respiratory illness, the absence in this group was
269 days. The groups being comparable in size, the saving can be directly
estimated at 39 days. It is possible that the vaccinated staff protected the
unvaccinated staff to some extent since the expected absence from respiratory
disease in 297 staff during a winter period would normally be about 840 days.
The absence was in fact 577 days in spite of a moderate Influenza epidemic in
the early months of 1962.
Owing to differences in the working week in different groups, it is not
possible to make a fair comparison between the days absent in the two groups
of manual workers. There is however, a marked contrast in the numbers absent
with respiratory disease in the two groups; 644 workers were not vaccinated,
and 96 of these suffered respiratory illness leading to absence. 422 were
vaccinated and 38 of these suffered from respiratory illness leading to absence.
The incidence of respiratory illness in the vaccinated may therefore be roughly
estimated at 9 per cent, and in the unvaccinated at 14.9 per cent. Vaccination
would appear to have reduced the numbers absent in the vaccinated group by
about one third.
The cost of the immunisation operation including equipment and staff time,
did not exceed £225. From the figures I have given it would appear to have
saved the Council work to the value of at least £350, even in the short term.
In the long term the reduction of respiratory illness in the Council's staff
and employees is probably much greater than shown here.
Smallpox
There were no cases of smallpox in the Borough in 1961, but action had to
be taken as the result of a case in another Borough. A Pakistani living in
St. Pancras developed what later turned out to be smallpox. When he felt too
ill to remain in his home he and his family went to University College Hospital
by ordinary taxi. The driver of the taxi was later vaccinated by St. Pancras
Public Health Department; when they discovered he lived in Edmonton they notified
me. I vaccinated his family and his neighbours on 29th December, and
vaccination was successful. The taxi operates from Islington and is supervised
there, and the driver in question stayed away from work and received compensation
from the Council. Close contacts traced and vaccinated in Edmonton amounted to
five, supervision was subsequently carried out for fourteen days without there
being any incident.
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