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Scarlet Fever. Notifications during the year totalled 146,
giving a case rate of 1.99 per thousand population. Sixty-six
cases were removed to isolation hospital, a slightly higher
percentage than last year. One hundred and nineteen of the
notifications concerned children attending school, 106 from
schools in our area and 13 from schools in neighbouring
districts. Two schools in particular accounted for 45 cases,
both having minor outbreaks during the summer term. There
was one return case during the year, a boy of 3½ years contracting
the disease a week after his sister had been discharged
from hospital as free from infection.
Poliomyelitis. Twenty patients were removed to hospital
as suspected cases of poliomyelitis. Fifteen of these were established
as cases, 11 paralytic and 4 non-paralytic. Unfortunately
one of the patients, a little girl aged 9 years died. Apart
from this one case the attacks appeared to be less severe
than usual, and in only very few cases was there any residual
paralysis. Further details are set out on pages 52 and 53.
Whooping Cough. There were 414 notifications of whooping
cough during the year, our highest number ever recorded
since this disease became notifiable in October 1939. Fortunately,
although the number of cases appears to be on the
increase, once again we had no deaths recorded from this
disease. There has in fact been only one death from whooping
cough in the district in the past nine years. Tt is amongst
the young babies that there is most danger from this disease,
and it speaks well for the health and strength of our infant
population when we note that the 92 children under one year ot'
age who have been notified as suffering from whooping cough
during the last six years all managed to survive the attacks.
Measles, The number of cases of measles notified (1260)
was also our highest on record. The epidemic lasted for five
months, from January to May, and then rapidly died out,
During the last six months of the year we had only 7 notifications.
As has been usual of late, the disease appeared to
be quite mild; only 7 of the patients were removed to hospital
and there were no deaths.
A table showing the incidence of measles in the district
over the past 20 years is given on page 49.
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