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Infantile Paralysis.
In common with the rest of the country, Brentford and
Chiswick suffered an outbreak of infantile paralysis in the latter
half of the year.
This graph shows the incidence of notifications from July
onwards, and also indicates the confirmed cases—all notified cases
were promptly removed to hospital, where, of course, facilities for
accurate diagnosis were available.
Careful follow-up enquiries were made in all cases, but no
definite vehicle of infection or mode of spread was found. The
distribution in the Borough was scattered, and case to case contact
did not seem to be a factor. It may be that cases occur in
which no clinical signs are obvious—these cases are never seen
by a doctor—and these may be the means by which the infection
is passed on. The mode of infection and the method of transmission
in this disease are subjects receiving much attention in
the research institutions of many countries; until the necessary
information is available, accurate methods of control cannot be
applied and one is compelled to adopt a blunderbuss policy and
hope for the best. The measures of prevention used included the
following:—
(1) Full investigation of home circumstances was made in each
case and follow-up of contacts was carried out. School
children contacts were excluded for three weeks and food
handlers were advised to stay away from work for the
appropriate period.
(2) Schools were allowed to re-open on the normal dates, but
the co-operation of the staff was secured in seeing that
ventilation was adequate, and that children were not excessively
fatigued by physical exercise.
(3) Careful watch was kept on the children attending the day
nurseries.
(4) No attempt was made to close Saturday morning cinema
shows, but information was circulated by various means
that overcrowding of any description was to be avoided.
(5) The chlorination of swimming baths and paddling pools
was pushed up to the maximum tolerated by the users,
and detailed instructions on the sterilisation of towels was
given to the baths personnel.
(6) The possible transmission of the disease by flies was made
known and steps were taken to abate the fly nuisance.
(7) Operations for tonsillectomy and multiple extractions of
teeth were discontinued during the outbreak.
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