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of course, the period of exclusion in the case of
contacts of such diseases as poliomyelitis, where the
duration of infectivity is still not clearly known,
and where the disease itself can be very serious,
remains more or less as before. Broadly speaking,
the Medical Officer of Health is given a wide latitude
in the matter of school exclusion. I have referred
to this matter on several occasions in submitting
detailed reports to the Public Health Committee, and
will continue to keep the Committee informed of any
changes in policy. Our present system aims at
obviating unnecessary loss of school attendance while
adopting such safeguards as are obviously necessary.
It is certainly a fact that our present policy has not
resulted, so for as we know, in any increase in infectious
diseases or in the spread of outbreaks or epidemics
in schools.
Diphtheria.
No cases of diphtheria were notified in the
district during 1956. The last death took place
approximately nine years ago.
These figures justify the fact that diphtheria
can no longer be considered a serious monaco. Or
perhaps it would be more true to say that, for the time
being, diphtheria has lost its terrors. The fact
that several cases of diphtheria have been notified in
various parts of the country within the past year, and
that some of these cases were extremely serious, points
to tho fact, however, that the possibility of diphtheria
returning as a major infectious disease can still not
be dismissed. Every now and again we receive a
laboratory report which indicates that the causative
organism may be the diphtheria bacillus. We also
hear of cases admitted to an isolation hospital which
clinically resemble diphtheria. Up to the present
none of these coses has been substantiated. But
existing evidence demonstrates that should the rate of
immunisation among children fall to any appreciable
extent, we might at any time be faced with quite a
serious problem.
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