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14
In connection with this outbreak and the failure to notify
the first cases it was decided by the Council to apply to the
L.G.B. for sanction to revoke the Resolution and I was requested
by the latter to furnish a Report on the matter, which
was as follows:—
Beaconsfield House,
Hanwell, W.
1st November, 1913.
Report on the Working of Compulsory Notification of Measles
in the Urban District of Greenford.
Measles was added to the Schedule of Notifiable diseases
in the Area of the Greenford Urban District by a Resolution
of the Council passed 8th October, 1906, the Council undertaking
not to revoke the order for at least five years.
The district being purely rural in character consisting
of several hamlets, viz: Greenford, Greenford Green, Perivale
and West Twyford, each separated from the other by a
considerable distance and having only one Public Elementary
School common to the whole. It was thought that by receiving
early notification of any cases of Measles occurring
in either of these isolated parts of the District, children coming
therefrom to School, might at once be excluded, and thus
prevent the disease being communicated to the other parts.
The result has however been disappointing on account
of the early cases not having been notified. On one occasion
only (in 1911) was any advantage derived therefrom. On
this occasion four cases were notified from Perivale, and the
children from this part of the District were excluded from
School, and no other cases occurred, as most probably would
have been the case had the children from this part of the District
continued to attend the School. In 1909 owing to the
first cases not having been notified the School became infected
and the disease spread to the other parts of the District,
thirty-seven cases being notified between June 15th and
August 17th. Had the first four cases which occurred at
Greenford been notified it might have been possible to confine
the outbreak to this part of the District.