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being conducted by the Public Health Laboratory Service to try and assess the efficiency
of British gamma globulin in preventing infective hepatitis.
The survey still continues and findings will be published in due course.
(See also page 22— Surveys).
Smallpox.
No cases of smallpox were notified during the year.
Under the Public Health (Aircraft) Regulations, 1966 and the Public Health
(Ships) Regulations, 1966 arrivals in this country from endemic areas who are not in
possession of valid international certificates of vaccination against Smallpox are placed
under surveillance by the Port or Airport Medical Officer for a period of fourteen
days.
27 such cases of persons proceeding to addresses situated in the Borough were
notified during the year. All were kept under surveillance for the stipulated period
with the exception of one person who had moved to a new address the day after
arrival. The appropriate Medical Officer of Health was duly informed.
Typhoid Fever.
Three cases of typhoid were notified during the year. Two of the cases occurred
in the same family and with the possibility that the source of infection was common
in both patients.
In one episode, the first patient was that of a wife who had accompanied her
husband on a professional trip to Spain accompanied by their son. Two days after
arrival in Spain all three were taken ill with diarrhoea and vomiting, but while husband
and son quickly recovered the wife continued to feel unwell even after her return
home.
Approximately threa weeks after sickening the wife was admitted to hospital
where the diagnosis of typhoid fever was confirmed. Immediate contacts were excluded
from work.
Twelve days after the wife's admission to hospital, the son was also admitted to
hospital and the diagnosis of Typhoid was again validated three days later.
It can be postulated that either the child was infected abroad at the same time
as his mother, or he could have been a secondary case infected by her. As a prudent
precaution, it was decided to assume that the latter was the case and exclusion of
contacts recommenced.
The husband had received a protective innoculation in 1953 while serving in the
Services but had had no re-inforcing dose since. Neither his wife, son nor other
immediate contacts had been protected.
The third case notified was that of a child aged 9 years who was taken ill in this
Borough ten days after leaving India. Diagnosis was confirmed in hospital and contacts
were kept under surveillance.
It is reasonable to assume that this infectious incident was an imported one.
Venereal Diseases.
I am indebted to Dr. N. Rosedale for the following statistics of the patients
treated at the Special Clinic at West Middlesex Hospital:—
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