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84
ERYSIPELAS
Only eight people were notified last year as suffering from erysipelas,
4 men and 4 women. In five the face was the affected site. In two instances
the condition followed injury. Three of the patients were removed to
hospital. None of the cases was fatal.
MENINGOCCOCAL INFECTION
In only one of the thirteen patients removed to hospital suspected to
be suffering from cerebro-spinal meningitis was the diagnosis confirmed.
The sufferer was a girl of fifteen who fell ill in January.
ACUTE ANTERIOR POLIOMYELITIS
The incidence of poliomyelitis in the country as a whole for the
first half of the year followed the pattern of the previous year, a year of
very low incidence. Whereas though in 1958 the numbers of weekly
notifications continued to rise as expected in the summer, in 1959 the rise
was much less, so that by the period of heaviest incidence, the weekly
notifications were only about half those of the corresponding weeks of
the previous year. This was in spite of the country having experienced
one of the warmest and sunniest summers for years, conditions in which
in ordinary circumstances the incidence would have been expected to be
high. From the beginning of the last quarter, when following the usual
pattern, the incidence was falling, there was a steadily increasing disproportion
between the figures for corresponding periods of the two years;
the ratio of one to two became one to four and later even more. The
figures of notifications for the last three weeks of 1959 were 7, 4 and
2. The figures for the corresponding weeks of 1958 were 47, 28 and 20.
For this lowered incidence, immunisation of large numbers of the population
must be given credit. By the end of the year 46 per cent of those
in the 16-26 age group had registered and nearly all had had two doses.
The acceptance rate of children reached 75 per cent.
The lowest incidence of poliomyelitis is towards the end of March.
With the very small numbers of cases occurring towards the end of
1958 there were hopes that by March the position would be reached
when for some weeks there would be no cases at all. In point of fact
that situation did not arise, so that what will happen when it does occur
is still uncertain. It might happen that once a break occurred, the pattern
of incidence of the infection in this country might revert to what it was
before the first nation-wide attack in 1947, since when the country has
never been free from the infection. Should there be this reversion to the
pre-1947 pattern, the whole question of immunisation of the general
population against poliomyelitis would come up for consideration.
It was estimated that in 1958 the incidence rate was 4.3 per 100,000
in the vaccinated, and 21.4 per 100,000 in the unvaccinated. In the same
year the fatality rate was over ten times in the non-immunised children
as to those vaccinated.