View report page

PREVALENCE AND CONTROL OF
INFECTIOUS DISEASES
From the table of infectious diseases set out on page 47, it will
be seen that 349 cases of infectious disease were notified during the
year, as against 1,073 in 1955. The Infectious Sickness Rate for the
district was therefore 4.87, as compared with 14.92 during the
previous year.
Although this figure is very satisfactory, it must be remembered
that 1956 was a year in which measles was non-epidemic. This is
the main reason why the total number of infectious diseases notified
during the year has fallen so considerably. Apart from the fall in
measles notifications (43 as against 888), there is very little to which
detailed attention need be drawn. Scarlet fever notifications fell
from 30 in 1955 to 19 in 1956; pertussis notifications rose from
25 to 150, a surprising figure when the comparable figures relating
to measles are remembered.
Food poisoning (including Sonne dysentery) notifications rose
from 34 to 54, while tuberculosis notifications remained almost
stationery (47 cases in 1955, 49 cases in 1956). Poliomyelitis notifications
rose from 3 in 1955 to 7 in 1956. All these matters will be
considered in greater detail in the subsequent paragraphs of this
section.
I have drawn attention in a number of previous Annual Reports
to the fact that the severity of infectious diseases as a whole has
appreciably decreased. This is very clearly manifested by the small
percentage of cases which now have to be admitted to hospital.
When one remembers that many of these cases are only sent to
hospital because of home conditions or because both the mother
and the father go out to work, it will be more than ever apparent
that the picture has completely altered. Indeed, it is now considered
by many authorities that the need for ad hoc isolation hospitals
has almost passed. Many existing isolation hospitals are now being
used for multiple purposes, of which the treatment of infectious
diseases is only one. We must, of course, remember that the
virulence of infectious diseases has been known to change in the
past, so that we can never be sure that the conditions which many
of us still remember only too vividly will not return. It is mainly
for this reason that sufficient beds can still be made available for
the treatment of infectious diseases in hospital should circumstances
change.
Our policy with regard to the exclusion of contacts of infectious
diseases from school has recently been revised. It is now virtually
certain that a child suffering from an infectious disease does not
remain infective for anything like the length of time previously
37