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8
DIPHTHERIA IMMUNISATION.
The routine propaganda to encourage parents to have their children
immunised against diphtheria continued throughout the year. The
Minister of Health in his Circular 194 of November, 1945, required
welfare authorities to make each health visitor responsible for securing
immunisation of children under school age in their own districts.
This practice had been in force in the Borough of Barnes since the
inauguration of the scheme for immunisation against diphtheria in
1935 and consequently no alteration in existing arrangements were
necessary. In order, however, to assist the health visitors to fulfil
the instruction to the highest degree of practicability sheets upon which
the names of all births notified or received as inward transfers during
each month are recorded and handed to the respective health visitors
when the children named thereon have reached the age of eleven
months. During the eleventh month the health visitor makes a
special effort to obtain consent of the parents for immunisation of
the children, recording the result of their visits and revisiting for
further persuasion where consent is not obtained.
In addition the health visitors routinely press parents to agree to
immunisation whenever they come across an un-immunised child,
whatever its age, during the course of visiting for any of the many
purposes which occasion a home visit.
The Borough Immunisation clinic is held every Wednesday morning
and children of all ages may, and do, attend. There is little or no
delay between the receipt of an application for immunisation and
the invitation to attend.
The cards in use at the Borough Clinics conform to the type
recommended by the Ministry and no alteration had been necessary—
details of injections of children leaving the district, etc. are forwarded,
to the Medical Officers of Health of the areas in which the new addresses
are situated.
The number of children receiving complete courses of immunising
injections during 1946 was 493 as compared with 609 during the
previous year.
Two children who had been immunised against diphtheria contracted
the disease during the year. The first, a child aged 4 years and 8
months had received immunising injections of 0.2 c.c. and 0.5 c.c.
A.P.T., in September and October, 1942, and a Schick Test in March,
1944 gave a negative result. The illness was a very mild one. The
other was a child aged 6 years, immunised in April and May, 1941
with injections of 0.1 c.c. and 0.3 c.c. A.P.T.—the then accepted
dosage. In this case the parents failed to bring the child for a Schick
Test. The illness was moderately severe in this instance with paralytic
complications. Both children recovered.