Annual medical and sanitary report / Bechuanaland Protectorate.

  • Bechuanaland Protectorate. Office of the Director of Medical Services.
Date:
[1948]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual medical and sanitary report / Bechuanaland Protectorate. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    3/18 (page 3)
    The stage is now deve1opment3 pa rt shortage of food, is investigating project and large being planned* lines' of communic urban p op ulation northern Bechuana set for important and essential icularly in relation to she world The Colonial Development Corporation the possibility of a long term ranching scale agricultural development is This will entail the opening up of new ation which will bring large centres of into relatively close contact with the land Prote ctorate. 8. On the other hand3 the already large volume of migrant labour traversing the routes from Angola via the Okovango River system* will undoubtedly increase* Until recently5 the swamps of the Okovango Delta have been relatively isolated. Pith the opening up of motor routes and the rapid transport by lorry of large numbers of Africans3 diseases previously unknown in Ngemiland are beginning to appear* This presages further extension and introduction of new diseases,, which3 once established3 may only be eradicated at enormous cost of man-power3 effort and money* 9. be pushed intense effort ii: Development cannot be halted, and indeed must w p /n o d energetically3 but this postulates cUj. . X cti already short of labour and, unereiore 3 fit manpower is an e production* essential to maximum 10* a.gainst this background3 the Okovango Delta shows up sharply as an area of first importance if development is to proceed unhampered* Enough is known of this swamp area3 covering approximately 1030CC square miles3 to assume that, because of its climate and abundant wa that3 because of its climate ter3 it supports a great variety of potential invertebrate and other vectors of tropical diseases. Increased agricultural activity and closer settlement will go hand in hand 'with development. This will entail the introduction of a non-indigenous and3 therefore3 non- which will give rise lif c go senous waste uidLess full use is immune pop ulation of effort and3 indeed3 human made of the kno'wledge and means within the power modern community to prevent disease* of 11. That this thesis is no idle speculation is supported by events of the past decade* Sleeping siclaiess and plague have appeared in epidemic form and hav taken heavy toll of the indigenous population. Both diseases are now endemic and are a constant source of recurrent expenditure designed only to confine and not to eradicate* Yellow fever has occurred and although never overt3 it may well appear again in explosive form. The analogy to the Anglo Egyptian Sudan is a close and an ominous one. one 12. Towards the end of 1948c an infection with Dracuncuius medinensis was reported from Maun3 the first case recorded from that area * As far as can be traced3 the infection was acquired in the swamps. Other filarial infections have nct3 as yet3 been described from this region3 but migrant labour passing through. Kgamiland may be infected, (de Me ill or. annual Report3 B.a.I.L.E. 1942. 5). There is little information about potential vectors but A.Fynestus and A.jaaaibicce are common. Cljryspps3 siimilium and culicoides are certain to be present* The possibility of the establishment of draccntiasis as an indigenous disease cannot be neglected. laj *. . *