Progress report of the Medical Officer of Health to 30th September, 1925 / Urban Sanitary District of the City of Port-of-Spain.

  • Port of Spain (Trinidad and Tobago). Public Health Department.
Date:
1925
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: Progress report of the Medical Officer of Health to 30th September, 1925 / Urban Sanitary District of the City of Port-of-Spain. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    26. Diphtheria and Pneumonia.—There were 17 cases of diphtheria with 2 deaths, being a decline of 3 on the previous record in the number of cases but with no difference in the deaths. 27. The notifications and deaths from pneumonia numbered 66 and 47 respectively, a double increase on the previous year when 58 cases and 36 deaths were recorded. Wet weather and dampness probably accounted for a good many cases, especially among children living in insanitary houses. 28. Ophthalmia Neonatorum. —Ophthalmia Neonatorum was added during the year to the list of notifiable infectious diseases by the Governor's proclamation. It is a preventable disease resulting from maternal infection, and sometimes causes destruction of the sight of new-born infants. Up to date only one case has been notified. TOTAL NOTIFICATIONS AND DEATHS. 29. Including non-pulmonary forms of tuberculosis, of which there were 9 notifications and 13 deaths, compared with 4 notifications and 18 deaths in the preceding record, the total number of cases of infectious diseases notified was 405, and the deaths, 190, as against 569 notifications and 222 deaths in the same period last year, being a decline this year of 29 per cent, in the notifications and 14 per cent, in the deaths. HOSPITAL ISOLATION. 30. Of the 405 cases of infectious disease notified to the Medical Officer of Health 264, or 65 per cent., were isolated and treated at the Colonial Hospital. Such a high percentage of hospital isolation is a valuable asset in the control of infectious disease. NQN-NOTIFIABLE INFECTIOUS DISEASES. * 31. There were 102 deaths, compared with 74 for the same period last year, from non-notifiable infectious diseases. Of these, whooping cough accounted for 5 ; influenza 2 ; dysentery, of which there were numerous cases of the amoebic type in the early part of the year, 23 ; ankylostomiasis, 7 ; syphilis, which is apparently becoming a formidable problem, 28 ; and malaria, 37. NOTIFICATION OF MALARIA AND DYSENTERY. 32. As there are no known active breeding places of anopheles mosquitoes within the district it is improbable that many of these deaths are the result of local infection. Without notification it is impossible to obtain satisfactory records of the prevalence of this disease in the City, or to undertake any special survey for possible breeding places in the neighbourhood of a case until death has taken place. 33. The notification of malaria may perhaps be beset with difficulties in some of the Rural Districts, but there seems to be no good reason why such a useful measure should not be introduced in Port-of-Spain where the administrative conditions are not the same as in the country. 34. Better control of the bowel complaints included under the head of dysentery or, more properly, “ the dysenteries,” would also result, if this group were made notifiable —a suggestion now respectfully submitted for the consideration of the Local Authoritv. » «. . . POPULATION. 35. The population of Port-of-Spain estimated to the 30th June, 1924, was 63,954. As the m< thed adopted by the Registrar General for arriving at the mean population cn which the birth and death rates are based requires data which do not become available until the year is over, it is not possible to calculate reliable rates for inclusion in this progress report, though, of course, they will form part of tl e next annual report.