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8
Infectious Disease.
Measles, Whooping Cough, Chicken Fox and Lumps
cause a considerable loss of school attendance, especially
in Infant Departments, and in order to keep a check upon
the incidence of these complaints in s chccl children, the
Head Teachers supply the Medical Department with a weekly
list of absences due to infectious diseases. This enables
the nursing .staff tc visit the- homes and give appropriate
advice in each case. When considered necessary, the school
nurse makes a general survey of all the scholars attending
any particular class affected, with a view tc discovering
any newly attacked or missed cases. In the case cf diphtheria,
swabs are taken from the threats and noses of any suspected
children,, If the examinations give a positive result the
children are excluded until either the swabs prove negative
or the diphtheria bacilli are shown tc be avirulent,
Diphtheria Immun1sation.
Throughout the year the ordinary sessions were held
at the Immunisation Clinics, Every opportunity was taken
of impressing, upon the parents the advisability of having
their children immunised against diphtheria as early as
prssible.
Much headway has been made in this crusade cf
educating the parents to realise the vital necessity of
immunisation, and increasing numbers took advantage of
the facilities offered.
Early in the year an intensive effort was made tc
secure the Immunisation of as many school children as
possible, and tc this end a scheme was put in hand for a mobile
clinic, complete with Calor gas sterilisation plant, to
visit each individual school. A special form of consent was
sent, with tne full co-operation cf the Head Teachers
and their staffs, to the parents of all school children,
informing them that one of the School Medical Officers
would attend each school in the near future tc carry out
immunisation, and asking for their consent as soon as possible.
The steps taken as outlined above proved to be a
great success, and a large number of children were speedily
innoculate d.
In the course of the year 2,779 children were
immunised either at the Special Clinics or at the Schorls
themselves.
Bacteriological Examinations.
Examinations cf swabs (after culture) are carried cut
daily in the Council's Laboratory, and three negative swabs
for diphtheria are always insisted upon before contacts or
Hospitalised patients are allowed tc return to school - thus
minimising the "carrier" population.
Despite this care an unsuspected carrier has caused
an occasional small outbreak cf the disease, but the ab ve
measures, together with the increased percentage cf immunised
children, have not.yet allowed a local epidemic tc affect
as many as 20 children (and none of these had been immunised).