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7
Preface
Telephone: PUBLIC HEALTH OFFICES,
VALentine 3401 ILFORD.
August, 1963.
Mr. MAYOR, LADIES and GENTLEMEN,
I submit herewith the Annual Report of the Health Services for the
year 1962.
The Health of the borough is well maintained and there was in 1962
no outbreak of disease warranting a special mention. The infant mortality
rate of 17.72 deaths per 1000 total live births was higher than in the
previous year (15.79), but this latter figure for 1961 was phenomenally
low, and with deaths of infants varying per year from 44 (1960), 40 (1961)
to 45 (1962), too much importance should not be given to small changes in
numbers already too low to make such changes of statistical significance.
In common with the rest of England, the birth rate is rising, being in the
last six years 12.35, 12.45, 12.41, 14.07, 14.25 and 14.31. This will pose
another "bulge" problem in the schools in three years' time. At the other
end of the scale, on 31st July 1963 an Ilford resident died at the ageof l05.
For some years we have wondered if the importation of dysentery
and food-poisoning from abroad constituted an appreciable hazard. A record
has been kept and in the last 12 months we have only been able to trace
six such cases, from Morocco, Corsica, Spain and Israel. Perhaps it was a
lucky year. It is not that Ilford residents are now "stay-at-homes", for the
department authenticated 7198 vaccination certificates for those about to
travel abroad. New regulations that came into operation on 1st August 1963
give the authorities far more power to control travellers by air from abroad.
For instance, those who have come from any smallpox-infected local area,
including returning British, should they not possess a valid International
Certificate of vaccination, or had a previous attack of smallpox, and should
they refuse vaccination, may, unless they are in transit, be isolated for
fourteen days from the date of departure from the infected area, or the
length of their stay in this country, whichever, is the less. This regulation
gives teeth to our powers of control, but would not have prevented the last
smallpox incident as all the Pakistani s who brought the infection here
had valid certificates.