Public health in 1948 : Remarkable statistics. The first months of the National Health Service
1950-03-31 1950 1950s 8 pages The figures for diphtheria immunisation showed a gratifying improvement. The number of immunisations in children under 15 years of age rose from 589,343 in 1947 to 702,744 in 1948 and in addition 490,383 children received a reinforcing injection. A concentrated effort i...
| Institution: | MCR - The Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick |
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| Language: | English English |
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31 March 1950
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10796/3F58232C-0362-42AF-AA87-C9775E2B0015 http://hdl.handle.net/10796/90ED106F-1E17-4C37-9DA6-E98C98D5BAB5 |
| Summary: | 1950-03-31
1950
1950s
8 pages
The figures for diphtheria immunisation showed a gratifying improvement. The number of immunisations in children under 15 years of age rose from 589,343 in 1947 to 702,744 in 1948 and in addition 490,383 children received a reinforcing injection. A concentrated effort is now needed to obtain a higher rate of primary immunisation before the first birthday and periodic reinforcing inoculations at later ages. [Pp. 3, 4, 33 and 35] Scarlet fever. Though there were 74,824 cases, there were only 37 deaths; the case fatality of 0.05 per cent was the lowest ever known. [P. 36] Measles. 1948 was a year of high prevalence with nearly 400,000 cases; nevertheless there were only 327 deaths, and in this disease also the case fatality of 0.08 per cent was by far the lowest ever recorded. [P.39] Whooping cough resembled measles in being prevalent with 146,383 cases (the highest incidence since 1941) and in reaching the lowest case fatality recorded 0.51 per cent. Nevertheless it ranks high among the notifiable diseases as a cause of infant deaths, killing more than twice as many children as measles (748). [P. 40] Cerebrospinal Fever continued to decline. The 1,216 notifications were fewer than in any year since 1937 and the 300 deaths were fewer than in any year since the disease was made notifiable in 1912. [P.43] Acute Poliomyelitis and polioencephalitis. There were 1,848 corrected notifications, a higher incidence than any year except 1947; deaths numbered 241, more than any previous year except 1947 (707) and 1938 (256). [P.45] No fresh information has emerged about the usual vehicle or the usual portal of entry of infection or the exact method of spread. Carriers are probably numerous. It is generally agreed that most preventive measures are, with two exceptions, of little value. The two exceptions are first, strict confinement to bed and avoidance of physical activity in any case in which a preparalytic meningeal stage might be suspected to be present; and secondly, postponement, wherever possible, of operations upon the throat, nose, or mouth during the prevalence of poliomyelitis. Enteric fever. There were 348 corrected notifications of, and 38 deaths from, typhoid fever in 1948, and 373 corrected notifications of, and 10 deaths from, paratyphoid fever. Most of the notifications are those of single sporadic cases. [P.48] This country continued to enjoy the low incidence of enteric fever of recent years, and in this respect was more fortunate than many European countries, in which the war years saw a greatly increased prevalence that has persisted in the post-war years. In its control the first objective is to identify the individual carrier, who, in almost every case, is the source of the outbreak, and the outbreaks described in the second section of Chapter II ("Notable outbreaks of 1948", a new feature in this Report) illustrate the complexity of such inquiries, and show how often many promising clues may lead to no positive conclusion. [P.74] Unlike typhoid fever, paratyphoid fever is seldom water-borne, but usually results from infection of food by a food handler suffering from a transitory infection which does not indispose him, and only on rare occasions is a chronic carrier identified as the source. Milk, ice cream and cream-filled confectionery are, at the present time, the usual vehicles. There are now powers that should give reasonably good control over the two first named. In the treatment of enteric fever the new drug, chloromycetin (chloramphenicol P.D.) promises further to reduce the case fatality. [Pp. 7 and 49] Dysentery. Notifications increased 35 per cent to 5,084, but deaths, in the paradoxical way associated with the recent epidemiology of bacterial dysentery, declined to 62, the fewest ever recorded. [P.49] - 3 -
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