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HEALTH
vibrios has continued on a year-round basis as part of the surveillance programme, with no positive isolations reported. Emphasis is placed on the importance of personal, environmental, and food hygiene.
Tuberculosis is no longer a major community health problem. Both the notifica- tion and death rates have decreased significantly in recent years. This is the result of much dedicated work involving a control programme which is a combined effort between the Government Chest Service and voluntary medical groups. The Chest Service maintains an extensive Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccination pro- gramme and during the year 98 per cent of babies born in Hong Kong received BCG vaccination within 72 hours of birth. The widespread use of this prophylactic measure has led to the rapid fall in tuberculosis in young people in Hong Kong.
The corner-stone of treatment is ambulatory chemotherapy on an outpatient basis. The patient is initially given an intensive three-month period of daily streptomycin, PAS and Isoniazid, followed by a regimen of twice weekly streptomycin injections and high dosage Isoniazid tablets. This has the advantage of being a completely supervised regimen.
Large scale co-operation with the Medical Research Council of the United Kingdom is being continued. The results of many investigations are of international interest and it is hoped that they will within the next few years revolutionise the approach to the treatment of tuberculosis. As the problems of tuberculosis are slowly but steadily being overcome, increasing attention is being paid to the in- vestigation of non-tuberculous diseases of the respiratory system, such as asthma and bronchiectasis.
Venereal diseases are treated free at social hygiene clinics. The recorded incidence of early infectious syphilis remained low in 1975-differing from experience in other parts of the world. Energetic control measures such as contact tracing, follow-up of defaulters, and routine ante-natal blood tests are aimed at interrupting the chain of infection.
Leprosy has been brought under control in Hong Kong. In view of the decreas- ing incidence, the Hay Ling Chau Leprosarium maintained by the Leprosy Mission- Hong Kong Auxiliary was closed in 1975. The remaining patients are accommodated in the Lai Chi Kok Hospital, since the complete isolation of leprosy patients is no longer necessary from the community health point of view. Outpatients are seen and treated at special skin clinics.
Malaria transmission has ceased in Hong Kong, and all cases notified during the year were imported. The vector does not exist in the urban areas or the greater part of the New Territories. However, anti-larval operations such as draining and clearing streams, ditching, and oiling are still carried out. In parts of the New Terri- tories, screening of buildings and use of mosquito nets constitute the main preventive
measures.
Diphtheria control illustrates again the success of public health measures in disease prevention. Fifteen years ago, more than 2,000 cases were reported in a single