[Report 1958] / Medical Officer of Health, Hailsham R.D.C.

  • Hailsham (England). Rural District Council.
Date:
1958
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1958] / Medical Officer of Health, Hailsham R.D.C. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    INFECTIOUS DISEASES There was a remarkably low number of notifications of infectious diseases received during the year, the total being 135 compared with 374 for 1957 and 531 for 1956. During the year only four cases were admitted to isolation hospital, three of these being merely observation cases. Three other cases had been admitted to a general hospital. Measles Only 61 cases were notified as compared with 140 cases in 1957 and 400 cases in 1956. Thus it appears that two non-epidemic years occurred consecutively but in fact most of the cases in 1958 were towards the end of the year and built up into the large epidemic of 1959o Whooping Cough There were only 20 cases of Whooping Cough compared with 154 in 1957. The immunisation state of every case was investigated. Of the 13 cases in children aged 5 years and under, 8 had been immunised against whooping cough and 5 had not. Of course such small figures are useless from a statistical point of view but it is also quite clear that immunisation against whooping cough with the vaccines used does not give a hundred per cent protection against the disease. Scarlet Fever There were 10 cases of scarlet fever compared with 7 in 1957. As has been the rule in recent years all cases were very mild. Diphthe ria Again there was no case of diphtheria during the year, there having been only one imported case during the last eleven years. One man was admitted to the Eastbourne Isolation Hospital in the month of March to exclude the possibility of diphtheria but bacteriological investigations proved that this was not a case of diphtheria. Acute Poliomyelitis There was only one case of poliomyelitis in this district in the year. This was a man aged 28 years from Hailsham. He was diagnosed as being a case of poliomyelitis whilst he was being treated as an in-patient in St. Mary's Hospital. He eventually made a good recovery. Two other cases were admitted to hospital for observation but in neither case was poliomyelitis confirmed.