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58
Most of the notifications received concern children of school age
and under, requiring treatment at home with appropriate segregation
during the carrier stage either by exclusion from school or day nursery.
No effort is spared to prevent the spread of the disease and there is
close liaison with general medical practitioners who are kept fully informed
of developments including up-to-date information as to drug
sensitivity of organisms.
An essential and important factor undertaken by the public health
inspectors is the opportunity to stress the necessity for personal
hygiene, especially to those concerned with food handling and the care
of young children. Every effort is also made to ensure that personal
hygiene is intensified and adhered to during outbreaks. Furthermore,
everything possible is done to prevent contact of individuals, in
particular children, with persons outside the infected home until the
whole family is free from infection.
Measures such as these tend to decrease the spread of the disease
and also act as an education in personal hygiene.
Tuberculosis.
In accordance with the national trend the number of new cases of
tuberculosis notified continues to be satisfactorily low, During 1963
in Kingston 14 cases were reported and of these 10 referred to lungs.
Compared with 1962, there is a decrease in the number of lung cases,
when the total of 20 notifications all referred to lungs.
Whilst we can claim that fear and pessimism concerning tuberculosis
have been largely removed from people's minds, and there is considerable
satisfaction to be derived from the decline in the number of new cases,
there are many cases on the register receiving treatment and attention
at the Chest Clinic.
It is therefore necessary to remember that breakdown and infectivity
are continually possible in these cases. It is to be hoped that
in due course continued effects of improved living conditions of the
populace, continued advances in therapeutic treatment, facilities for
early detection of tuberculosis by public mass x-ray sessions and B.C.G.
vaccination of school children will eventually bring this disease to the
point of eradication.
The following table shows comparative figures of notified cases and
deaths for the years 1954 to 1963 (inclusive):-