View report page

In addition, 3,357 children between the ages of 5 and 12 were given a fourth reinforcing
injection during 1961.
Influenza
Influenza assumed epidemic form in the first three months of 1961, but although it
was the cause of absenteeism and overcrowding of hospital beds, the form of the disease
was not unduly severe. Eleven deaths were recorded as having been caused by the influenza.
Dysentery
Sixteen notifications for dysentery were received in 1961. Out of these only one was
confirmed bacteriologically as positive for dysentery, the organism being Shigella Flexnerii.
Smallpox (Variola)
No case of smallpox occurred in Southall during the year.
Notifications were received of contacts, three in number, members of the crew of a
ship from which a case of suspected smallpox had been removed to hospital. The final
diagnosis was that the patient did not have smallpox.
In the last days of the year smallpox cases were discovered in England having been
brought in by air from Karachi, where an epidemic of this disease had broken out. Surveillance
was begun.
Vaccination against Smallpox
The total figures for vaccination showed a slight rise in 1961 but the percentage of
children receiving vaccination during their first year of life went down from 50% in 1960
to 46% in 1961.

Typhoid Fever
A case of this disease was discovered in a boy returned from holiday abroad, he was
treated and discharged from hospital free from infection.
Scarlet Fever (Scarlatina)
The number of notifications received during the year was 27 as compared with 42
for the previous year. There was one secondary case, i.e. occurring within three weeks
following the notification of a previous case in the same household.
13