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13
EPIDEMIOLOGY
(by A. Shaw, M.B.. B.S., D.P.H.,
Deputy Medical Officer of Health)
Infectious Disease
Since last year's report was prepared leprosy has been made
notifiable to the Medical Officer of Health. This brings the
number of notifiable infectious diseases up to 24.(Appendix 1).
Notification
of Leprosy
This department has always known the extent of leprosy
in the borough and the new regulations merely transfer the
direction of notification to the Medical Officer of Health
instead of directly to the Ministry of Health. The very closest
contact is maintained with the Ministry of Health, which
maintains a central register and a panel of leprosy experts.
Leprosy has a particularly sinister connotation to the lay
mind. This reputation is totally undeserved as the disease
seen today has a low infectivity and should not engender the
superstitious horror that it did in biblical and mediaeval times.
Even in African hospitals devoted to the treatment of leprosy,
when the disease is in an infectious and active stage, transmission
to the children of patients is rare.
There are no infectious cases of leprosy in Redbridge.
Poliomyelitis
One case of paralytic poliomyelitis, in a man of 21,occurred
during the year. The patient had not been vaccinated
against the disease. Our last information was that he was
suffering from a residual paralysis of the left leg.
One death from the late results of poliomyelitis was
notified. This was in a female medical missionary aged 41,
who contracted the disease in Nigeria and was flown for treatment
at Oxford. She died nine months later.
Intestinal
Infections
294 cases of dysentery, 12 cases of food poisoning and 1
case of enteric fever (paratyphoid B) were reported during the
year.
These numbers represent the tip of an iceberg. It is known
that dysentery is considerably undernotified. Food poisoning
and the enteric fever caused by the paratyphoid organisms
often have dysenteric symptoms and may be diagnosed as
dysentery, and may fail to be notified. In this way the causal
organism is missed and links in the chain of infection are lost.
Person-to-person infection is the most important factor in