Annual report of the Medical Department / Tanganyika Territory.

  • Tanganyika. Medical Department.
Date:
[1951]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report of the Medical Department / Tanganyika Territory. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    18/84 (page 12)
    36. In the Eastern Begion a small series of studies was undertaken with a view to determining the true incidence of sulphonamide-resistant gonorrhoea. Of 112 cases of gonorrhoea, 86 were cured by sulphonamide therapy, and of the 26 failures, 21 were subsequently cured by penicillin. (B) Vector borne Infections Plague TABLE VII Reported Territorial Incidence, 1947-1951 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 Cases — 312 ... 18 ... _ . . . 263 Deaths — 178 ... 14 ... _ 40 Case mortality per cent - ... 57-05 ... 77-77 ... — 15-21 37. Early in the year a small outbreak occurred in the Nassa area of the Mwanza District; the organism was recovered from one patient. The total number of cases is unknown, but it is surmised that the nineteen persons wrho sickened and died suddenly in the area before the disease was reported to the medical authorities were victims of plague. Boad blocks were set up, and in the affected area all houses were dusted with gammexane. The flooding of the Simiyu Biver formed an effective barrier between the infected area and Mwanza, and the outbreak remained localised and small in extent. 38. In the latter half of the year there was an epizootic of rats in many parts of the Territory ; enormous numbers of these animals were reported, and considerable damage was done to crops. 39. In the middle of November the District Commissioner, Same, reported an outbreak of illness at Suji, in the South Pare mountains, of which sixteen persons were reported to have died within a period of three weeks. Investi¬ gations by staff of the department indicated that the disease was plague, and this was shortly confirmed by autopsy. 40. The management of the Hassani Sisal Estate placed their hospital at the disposal of the department, and operations for the control of the outbreak and the treatment of cases wTere centred here and at Suji and Gonja. In these j three areas separate medical teams and treatment centres were established, and streptomycin was used with dramatic results. Up to 30th December, 1951, by which time the outbreak was under control, 155 cases had been treated, of whom eight died. 41. Preventive measures included control of the movement of population, widespread vaccination against plague, rat destruction and flea destruction, the latter by the use of gammexane. At Makanya, the railway station was closed and road traffic was controlled with the co-operation of the Police. Some 45,000 vaccinations with plague vaccine were performed in the area.i Extensive cleansing of houses was undertaken, and Messrs. Amboni Sisal Estates Ltd., lent to the department a “Tifa” applicator. The results of rat poisoning with barium carbonate are reported as having been disappointing.