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72
Disinfection. In 1959 authority was given for steps to be taken
for the erection of the new disinfecting plant which had been agreed upon
some years previously. At their meeting on the 3rd January, 1961 the
Public Health Committee recommended the Council to accept tenders for
the erection of the steam disinfector and garage and improvements to the
mortuary at Peel Road. Wealdstone.
DIPHTHERIA
Incidence
Although a number of patients were suspected to be suffering from
diphtheria, in none was the diagnosis confirmed. The district has been
free from this infection since 1950, a period of ten years. The last fatal
case here was in 1946.
Immunisation. Although a number of authorities provided facilities
for the children in their districts to be inoculated against diphtheria in
the late 1920's, it was not until the end of 1940 when the Government
gave active encouragement to the campaign that the movement developed
on a national scale. Since that time immunisation of children against
diphtheria has become very largely accepted. Concurrently with the
development of the immune state of large sections of the population,
there has been a diminution in the number of cases and of deaths. For the
ten years preceding the beginning of the campaign, the average number
of cases each year was 55,000, the average number of deaths 2,800. The
number of cases fell to reach a figure as low as 1,000 for the first time in
1950 and under 100 for the first time in 1957. The number of deaths fell
to under 100 for the first time in 1949 and to below ten for the first time
in 1955. There were no outbreaks in 1956 or in 1957, most of the cases
occurring in those two years being single ones. In 1959 there were no
deaths the first time this could be recorded. All this has been brought
about largely as a result of actively immunising the population against
this infection.
However satisfactory the situation has become nationally, the position
is that any individual person or child who has not been protected, either
naturally or artificially, is at risk if exposed to infection. The organism
of diphtheria is these days less prevalent. Nevertheless, it is still about
and the fact that large numbers of the population are immune to diphtheria
does not mean that there is no risk to those who have not been protected.
Perhaps because diphtheria has become less common, mothers, knowing
nothing about the disease, are losing their dread of it, and for this reason
are not having their children protected. Then too, the matter has been
complicated by the alteration in the practice of immunising against
various infections following the recognition of provocation poliomyelitisresulting
in a child requiring a large number of pricks with a syringe
needle to give him protection against a number of infections. This has
resulted in some mothers, while perhaps having their children immunised
against some other infections, not having them protected against diphtheria.
It has been accepted too that children inoculated in infancy