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HEALTH
The general state of health of the population continued to be satisfactory, as demonstrated by the Colony's vital statistics which appear in Appendix XXX.
ADMINISTRATION
The Medical and Health Department provides hospital and clinic facilities throughout both urban and rural areas, maintains maternal and child health, school health and port health services and is responsible for measures to control epidemic and endemic disease.
The estimated expenditure of the Medical and Health Department for the financial year 1969-70 is $147,858,900. To this should be added subventions totalling an estimated $62,085,600 to many non-government medical institutions and organisations. The esti- mated capital expenditure for the Medical and Health Department during 1969-70 on hospital and other buildings, including furniture and equipment, is $16,179,000.
COMMUNICABLE DISEASES
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Cholera reappeared in Hong Kong after an absence of the disease for more than two and half years, the last case being reported in November 1966. Routine sampling of nightsoil for cholera vibrio had been carried out on a year-round basis as part of the surveillance programme. The first indication of cholera vibrio in 1969 was a positive isolation in the middle of May of V cholerae El Tor (Inaba) in a specimen collected from a nightsoil route in the western area of Hong Kong Island. This was 52 days before the appearance of the first clinical case in Kowloon. Following the confirmation of the first clinical case on July 5, all the necessary public health measures to contain the spread of the disease were reinforced. The annual inoculation drive, which had been in progress since April, was intensified particularly in the vicinity of the affected premises and among the population at risk. Apart from one imported case notified in August there were six cases notified in July and one isolated case in September. In addition a further case was reported on October 16, making a total of nine cases notified between July 5 and October 16. As the disease has become endemic in this part of the world, special preventive measures are continued and quarantine restrictions are maintained in respect of neighbouring countries declared infected.