Annual report of the Medical Department / Uganda Protectorate.

  • Uganda Protectorate. Medical Department.
Date:
[1951]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report of the Medical Department / Uganda Protectorate. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    18/92 (page 12)
    An analysis of the Asian deaths during the five years 1946-50, com¬ pared with the census population of 1948, gave the following age-specific death-rates— Death-rates per Thousand—Asians Age 0- 5- 15- 25- 45- 65- Males 10 2 2 3 11 50 Females 10 2 4 5 10 40 The crude death rate for all Asians was 5.5 per thousand for this period, but owing to the youthfulness of the population and the return of many older persons to Asia this rate appears acceptable on the whole. Even as it is, the standardised death-rate is 20% higher than the death-rate in the United Kingdom. The infantile mortality rate based on registered data was 17 per 1,000 births for these five years, only 12% of the deaths being of infants under the age of one month. In the United Kingdom 59% of infant deaths are of infants under one month of age. Table VI Asian Patients at Government Hospitals Official Non-Official Year Total Male Female Male Female Total patients 1950 ... 2,948 166 5,010 4,500 12,624 1951 ... 4,233 2,168 2,915 2,237 11,553 Admissions to hospital 1950 ... 219 178 937 1,229 2,563 1951 ... 248 238 770 1,092 2,348 Deaths in hospital 1950 ... 2 2 31 14 49 1951 ... 2 1 30 12 45 The number of patients treated at the Asian Hospital, Kampala, was precisely the same in 1951 as in 1950 (4,983), of whom 1,524 were admitted as in-patients. Greater consistency was secured by counting all those entitled to free medical attendance as official patients, that is to say, not only Government and High Commission officers, but also their wives and families. This accounts for the different partition of the patients com¬ pared with the previous year. The deaths of Asians notified to the Registrar of Births and Deaths amounted to 248 as compared with 199 in 1950, deaths of infants under 1 year of age being 61 (47)*, giving an infant mortality rate of 23 per thousand. Maternal deaths amounted to 14 (12), a rate of 5 per thousand births. Accidents caused 17 (18) of the deaths, 6 being the result of motor accidents and 4 being from burns and scalds. Malaria accounted for 52 (33), including 14 (8) from blackwater fever. Of the blaekwater fever deaths, 11 occurred in the Eastern Province, although only 37% of deaths from all causes occurred in that Province. No deaths were reported from typhoid, and only 2 (3) from tuberculosis. Pneumonia claimed 33 (21) victims, the majority being infants under the age of one year. Note.—^Number in previous year given in brackets.