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50
SECTION F
PREVALENCE OF, AND CONTROL OVER,
INFECTIOUS AND OTHER DISEASES.
GENERAL.
Altogether 1,640 cases of infectious disease were notified during
the year, as against 1,170 during 1954. This increase in the number of
notifications was largely due to an epidemic of measles, which commenced
in the latter part of 1954, and continued until the early summer
of the year under discussion. Despite the large numbers of cases of the
disease, most were mild in character, and remained free from
complications.
The other feature demanding general comment was the incidence
of poliomyelitis, of which there were 16 confirmed cases, ten of these
being paralytic. In addition, a further five cases were notified, but on
further investigation were not confirmed as poliomyelitis. Although
this number of cases was not great, compared with that experienced
in some other parts of the country, there were, unfortunately, two
deaths from the disease.
A discussion of the individual infections follows in this report,
and full statistical details of the notifiable infections will be found in
Tables IV, V and VI of the Appendix.
Acute Anterior Poliomyelitis.
The seasonal incidence of this disease followed the now familiar
pattern and the great majority of the cases occurred in the late summer,
and autumn of the year. Indeed, there was only one exception
to this, a paralytic case, which was reported during February. There
were then no further notifications until the end of August, following
which cases continued to occur until the end of November.
Altogether, 21 notifications of the disease were received, but of
these 5 proved on subsequent investigation to be suffering from other
illnesses. Of the 16 confirmed cases, 6 were non-paralytic, and 10
paralytic, but of the latter 2 were normally resident in other districts.
In 2 instances the paralysis was of the bulbar type, and one of these
bulbar cases and one other paralytic case, proved fatal.
Of the 16 confirmed cases, 3 were children under school age,
7 were children of school age, and 6, including the two fatal cases,
were adults. These figures illustrate the tendency in recent years
for the disease to affect the older child and the adult, which now
makes the name "infantile paralysis" something of a misnomer.