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41
Prevalence of, and Control over, Infectious
and other Diseases.
Table XIV. shows the incidence of notifiable infectious diseases occurring
in the Borough during the year.
The incidence of Diphtheria remained comparatively low showing
only a very slight increase over the preceding year. IScarlet Fever, however,
had a high incidence especially during the months of November and
December ; this was concurrent with an increased incidence throughout the
country generally. The higher incidence mainly affected the school children.
The control of infectious diseases in the schools follows closely on the
lines of the Board of Education's Memorandum on the Closure of and Exclusion
from 'School that is to say that all cases of notifiable infectious diseases
in the schools are excluded and examined by your school medical staff before
re-admission, all contacts are also excluded for varying periods, depending
on whether the case has been removed to hospital and on the incubation
period of the particular disease. Periodic visits were paid to the schools by
your School Medical Officers while the incidence of Scarlet Fever was high
so that any missed or suspicious cases could be dealt with, this procedure
was also adopted when the first case of Diphtheria occurred in any department.
The result of this was that a number of children were found in school
who had symptoms of having recently suffered from Scarlet Fever and others
who were highly suspicious were also found, these were excluded from school
and certain of the more definite were admitted to hospital, thus preventing
further contact of the healthy children with these cases, and it is hoped,
minimising the incidence of the disease.
As regards the non-notifiable infectious diseases, a system is in force
by which the Head Teacher of the Schools affected notify the Public Health
Department weekly of any cases excluded on account of the occurrence of
Measles, Mumps, Whooping Cough and Chickenpox, here again the exclusion
of contacts follows the lines indicated in the Board's Memorandum. It has
not been found necessary to close any school or department because of the
incidence of infectious disease.