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Poliomyelitis. This year was not an exceptionally heavy
year for notifications of Poliomyelitis. In all we had nine cases
notified, of which 7 were paralytic and 2 non-paralytic. It
is indeed unfortunate that two of these patients had very
severe attacks and failed to survive.
Details of the cases are set out on page 53.
Whooping Cough. There were 278 cases notified during
the year, but fortunately, no deaths. Although the numbers
are less than those for 1951 the case rate at 3.77 per thousand
population is still rather high. Resistance to this infection
either because of high nutritional standards or because of
good environment appears to be high and though the manifestations
of the disease in some cases are distressing to the
parents to have to observe, some comfort may be derived from
the low mortality rate and the low morbidity rate, aided
perhaps by modern therapeutic agencies.
Measles. The number of cases of measles notified (491)
was our lowest since 1947, but it could hardly be called a
non-epidemic year when we consider that 240 (or nearly 50%)
of these were notified during a period of three months—
April to June. It is, however, gratifying to see that our case
rate at 6.66 was lower than that of the remainder of the
country.
A table showing the incidence of measles in the district
over the past 20 years is given below.