View report page

37
contracting infection. The risk is merely reduced though, and is not
completely removed; and the fact that, in any district, a large proportion
of children are successfully immunised, and the fact that there
is little diphtheria in the district ought not to lull mothers into a sense
of false security. Because many other children are protected any individual
child is less likely to contact infection, but the risk is still there
and cannot be removed unless that child is treated and immunised.
From a public health point of view it is sufficient to have a high proportion
of the child population immunised. That is an almost certain
guarantee against any widespread outbreak. But while in this way the
risks to any given child are lessened, they can be removed only if he is
himself protected.
During the year, 2,118 children were treated for the first time, 1,251
by general medical practitioners, 855 at infant welfare centres, and 12 at
day nurseries. It is estimated that at the end of the year 50.2 per cent. of
children under 5 years of age were immunised and 75 per cent. of
children aged 5 to 15 years.
SCARLET FEVER
In common with that of the rest of the country the population
of this district in 1950 suffered only slightly from invasion by scarlet
fever. During the year only 262 persons were notified as suffering from
this complaint. In a number of these patients the diagnosis was not
confirmed, the corrected figure being 255 cases, an incidence rate per
thousand population of 1.1, a very low figure.
The incidence was heaviest in the early months of the year. The
average number of notifications each week in the first quarter of the year
was 9, in the second 5, and in the third 3.5. The incidence continued to
fall in the last quarter when the weekly average was only 2.5.
The disease was mild in character, and there were no fatalities. The
69 patients who were admitted to hospital were not removed because
their clinical condition necessitated special medical or nursing care.
Most admitted to hospital were accepted at the Hendon Isolation
Hospital, but 25, or about one-third, had to be found accommodation
in some other infectious diseases hospital.
There were nine households in which secondary cases of infection
occurred; in most only the one, but in one home two other children
succumbed. In all cases the primary patient had been nursed at home.
In four instances the secondary case had probably already been infected
before the disease was recognised in the first patient. In the others,
however, there was an appreciable interval between the dates of onset
of illness in the patients: in one case, up to four weeks; and in these
households it is possible that had the original case been removed to
hospital the other patient in the house, who succumbed, would not have
contracted the infection.
There was this year only one return case, the patient falling ill four
days after the return home from hospital of her sister, who in that time
had developed a sore nose. In one house a child fell ill seven days after
her brother, who had been nursed at home for three weeks, had been
freed from infection.