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HEALTH
notified as compared with 363 cases and 52 deaths in the year immediately preceeding the mass campaign.
In recent years there has been a gradual increase, associated with the increasing numbers of the population at risk, in both amoebiasis and bacillary dysentery. The mortality remains low.
Measles infection is most prevalent during the cooler months and is known to be a widespread but generally mild disease. The high case fatality amongst notified cases reflects the incompleteness of notification, and this mortality is mainly due to bronchopneumonia encountered too late for treatment to be effective.
HEALTH SERVICES
The Port Health Service enforces International Sanitary Regula- tions, as embodied in the Quarantine and Prevention of Diseases Ordinance and Prevention of the Spread of Infectious Diseases Regulation, 1955. The service collects and distributes information on notifiable diseases, provides inoculation and vaccination facilities for travellers and transmits medical advice by radio to ships at sea. Epidemiological information is regularly exchanged with the World Health Organization in Geneva, the Western Pacific Regional Office in Manila and with ports and airports in other countries. Passengers arriving by land, sea and air are medically examined as necessary and quarantine measures enforced against travellers from infected ports and airports.
The Port Health Service is responsible for sanitary control of the port and airport and these areas were kept free from Aedes aegypti throughout the year. There is regular supervision of the purity of water supplied by dock hydrants and water boats, and of the airport catering service. Ships are inspected to determine the extent of rat infestation and international deratting certificates issued. The dock area and airport are included in the rodent control scheme for the Colony and returns of rats destroyed and bacteriological examinations for plague are submitted weekly to the World Health Organization's international quarantine service.
MATERNAL AND CHILD HEALTH
Most babies are born in hospital maternity wards or in maternity homes, slightly more of them in the latter. Confinements at home,