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Whooping Cough
40 cases of whooping cough occurred in 1960, Immunisation against whooping
cough is fairly general now the inoculation being carried out either simultaneously
with that for immunisation against diphtheria or in series alternating
with anti-diphtheria inoculation, and outbreaks of whooping cough have not been
occurring during the past few years.
No deaths occurred from this disease during I960.
Food Poisoning
Fifty-five notifications of food poisoning were received during the year.
Of these, 26 cases were subsequently not confirmed as food poisoning and 26
were found to be cases of Sonne" dysentery. The remaining three cases were considered
food poisoning due to the organism Salmonella Typhi murium
Dysentery
115 notifications of dysentery were received 24 of these were not confirmed
but as 26 notified as food poisoning were found to be infected with
Shigella Sonnei, this makes a total of 117 confirmed cases
There was an outbreak of Sonne dysentery among school children in the first
place, and, before the outbreak was cleared positive cases were found in eleven
of the schools of the Borough, During this outbreak 89 families were investigated
comprising 416 persons, from all of whom faeces specimens were obtained.
113 bacteriological positives were found among these 58 of whom were school
children. As always when infectious disease occurs the opportunity was taken
to check on sanitary facilities in various premises, and the lack of washing
facilities in the boys cloakroom at one school was brought to the attention of
the Education Authority,
A further occurrence of gastric indisposition amongst school children was
reported in October, but investigation and bacteriological testing of 60 children
and staff proved that except in the case of one child no dysentery organism
was the cause. The fact that this happening was in the late fruit season of the
year may be significant as it is often found that when fruit is abundant there
is an increase in the number of cases of intestinal disorder
Influenza
Influenza was not a problem during 1960 until the end of the year when cases
began to occur Two deaths were attributed to influenza.
Typhoid and Paratyphoid
There were no cases of typhoid or paratyphoid fever during 1960.
Tuberculosis
The number of notifications of tuberculosis in 1960 was 60 as compared with
73 in the previous year, the pulmonary cases amounting to 51 and the non-pulmonary
to 9. The number of deaths from this disease was one (the lowest ever
recorded in the Borough) as compared with two in 1959 seven in 1958, four in
1957, six in 1956 and seven in 1955.
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