96
HONG KONG ANNUAL REPORT
The crude death-rate continues to be extremely low (only 8.2 per mille), while births continue to increase, infant mortality to decline slowly, and maternal mortality to remain remarkably low. The steady natural increase in the population, at an average net rate of just on 200 a day, is introducing fresh problems of health, housing, employment and education. All existing medical facilities are severely overtaxed.
There have been the usual large number of fires in squatter areas, producing acute problems in sanitation, relief, and rehabilitation. The development of industry in the New Territories, particularly at Tsun Wan, demands constant vigilance to maintain even minimum standards of public health. In addition, there is the persistent severe shortage of
water.
Details of the tremendous work going on to provide better housing conditions will be found in the next chapter: To give some idea of the medical and health background of the Colony, it has to be remembered that hundreds of thousands of people are still living in squatter shacks or else herded together in insanitary congested tenements where in some cases as many as 80 people may be sharing a kitchen, with one tap that delivers water for only 2 hours a day, and one latrine which, when it is a flushing water-closet, is often rather worse than a dry-pan latrine because of shortage of flushing water. Under these conditions it is not surprising to find diseases of congestion, such as tuberculosis, diphtheria, measles and pneumonia, and diseases associated with dirt, such as gastro-enteritis, the dysenteries, and the enteric fevers, stubbornly persisting and taking toll in human lives. and vitality. Against this background it is easier to appreciate the intense effort which goes to giving the Colony the very high general level of public health it at present enjoys.
Communicable Diseases
The table opposite gives the year's return of infectious diseases, with comparisons from 1954. To these figures may be added the following comments.
Amoebic Dysentery occurred throughout the year with very slight seasonal variations.
Bacillary Dysentery. Almost half the cases occurred in children under 10, and 51.4% of the deaths were in children