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40
SECTION G.
INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
The control of infectious diseases necessitates prompt
exchange of information between the authorities concerned and
it is a matter for gratitude that during the course of the year
the liaison between the Medical Officer of Health and the
Hospitals has been built up and strengthened. By virtue of
arrangements made during the course of the year, the Hospitals
keep me informed of any case of infectious or suspected
infectious disease which may occur in institutions under their
control. For our part we keep the Hospital authorities apprised
of all important developments on the Infectious Disease front,
thereby enabling them to be on the look out for the particular
infectious diseases which may be rampant at any particular time.
These arrangements would be especially valuable should an outbreak
of a serious infectious disease, for example, smallpox or
enteric fever occur.
A routine letter is sent to laundries collecting laundry from
households in respect of which notification of an infectious
disease has been received, advising the laundry to take precautionary
public health measures. Head teachers of schools are
also kept informed of school contacts, and also the employer
especially in cases associated with food handling.
Anterior Poliomyelitis.
In view of the large and widespread epidemic of infantile
paralysis which occurred in the country in the latter part of the
year, we were indeed fortunate in that although we had 70 cases
notified, only four were paralytic, including one death. Last
year's outbreak was distinctive in that many widely separated
districts had a large number of cases leaving extensive intervening
areas relatively unaffected. Critical anaylsis of this
peculiar distribution would rather lead to the conclusion that,
spread out over the country, there are at certain times of the
year, quite virulent foci of infection. If we take as an example
two neighbouring towns A and B of similar type and of more
or less equal population and find that in A, there are a large
number of cases, while in B only two cases occur, the reasonable
inference appears to be that a large number of people in town A
have come into contact with the focus of infection in that town,
whereas in town B only those who visited A have exposed themselves
to the risk of infection. This theory would do a lot to
explain the fact that case to case infection appears to be very
rare, for example, the unusualness of more than one case in a