Report on the public health / Southern Rhodesia.

  • Southern Rhodesia. Department of Health
Date:
[1950]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the public health / Southern Rhodesia. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    13/62 (page 7)
    The maternal mortality rate of 0.6 per 1,000 live births is the lowest rate ever experienced in the Colony, the previous best rate being in 1941 when there were 1.1 deaths per 1,000 live births. tv Chapter II.—INFECTIOUS AND COMMUNICABLE DISEASES. (1) Notification of Infectious Disease. During the year efforts have been made to improve the notification of infectious disease. If such cases die the medical practitioners will register the cause. It is therefore probable that the figures given for deaths are reasonably reliable but the incidence is probably a good deal higher than indicated. All medical practitioners are invited to co-operate with the health services by notifying all cases promptly and thus increasing the value of the statistics. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Disease European Cases Deaths Non-European Cases Deaths Convention Diseases. * Cholera . — — — — * Plague . — — — — * Smallpox . 4 — 857 60 * Typhus fever (exanthematous) . — — — — * Yellow fever . — — — — Tuberculosis and Silicosis. # Pulmonary tuberculosis . 26 2 432 82 * Non-pulmonary tuberculosis 1 — 102 39 Silicosis . — — 5 — * Silicosis with active tuberculosis — — 14 8 Infectious Diseases of Childhood. * Chickenpox . 235 — 611 — German measles . 18 — 2 — Measles . 49 1 298 1 Mumps . 95 •— 54 •— Whooping cough . 17 —■ 636 — Virus Encephalitis Group. * Acute anterior poliomyelitis. 11 1 5 1 * Encephalitis lethargica . — — 1 1 Bacterial infections. Tetanus . — — 2 1 * Scarlet fever . 151 — 3 1 * Erysipelas . 4 — 1 — * Puerperal septicaemia . — — 9 3 * Cerebro-spinal meningitis . 9 — 164 20 Meningitis—other organisms . — — 20 9 * Diphtheria . 30 1 147 22 * Typhoid fever . 43 1 192 33 # Paratyphoid fever. 2 — 2 — Miscellaneous. Relapsing fever . — — 5 — Tick typhus . 1 — — — Trachoma . — — 49 — * Trypanosomiasis . — — 4 2 * Undulant fever . 1 — 1 — ✓ ir ✓ ✓ * / * Indicates diseases declared notifiable infectious diseases in terms of the Public Health Act. (2) Malaria and Blackwater Fever. A year of drought in most parts of the territory has resulted in a general decrease in the incidence of malaria. Admissions of European cases to Government Hospitals numbered 999 and resulted in four deaths which represents a hospital admission rate per 1,000 of the population of 8.6 which is the lowest annual rate ever recorded; and a case mortality rate of 0.4 per cent, which is also very low. Compared with 1948, Bulawayo Hospital admitted less than one-third of the malaria patients of that year, but the Gatooma, Que Que and Sinoia Hospitals showed substantial increases.