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Diphtheria
No cases occurred during the year, the fifth successive one of freedom
from this infection.
Diphtheria Immunisation
After 5 years with no diphtheria, it becomes increasingly difficult to
maintain a sufficiently high level of artificially conferred immunity to
guarantee a continuation of this freedom. Parents in recent years have
become more concerned to secure protection against whooping cough and
the not unsatisfactory level of diphtheria immunisation which is still
being achieved is in no small measure due to the fact that it is possible to
combine it with the prophylactic treatment of whooping cough.
The scheme, as organised locally, aims at giving primary immunisation
before the age of one year and to reinforce the treatment by
further single boosting injections at the time of entry to school and
thereafter at three-yearly intervals until the child reaches secondary
school.
The index of immunity is now calculated on the number of children
under 15 years of age who have received primary or reinforcing treatment
within the previous 5 years. On this basis, the last reinforcing
injection should not be before the tenth birthday. The facilities for
treatment take this consideration into account. It is available free at
all the Infant Welfare Clinics for children under 5 years, at the School
Clinics and at special sessions conducted in the Primary Schools of the
district in alternate terms for children of school age. It may be had
also as part of the General Practitioner services established under the
National Health Service Act.
During 1954, 729 resident children received a primary course of
treatment as follows:
48