399
An examination of the deaths occurring in each Health District will reveal the localities in which further measures of prevention are indicated, and these are shown for the past three years in the following Table :-
Deaths of Chinese from Malaria classified into Health Districts.
City of Victoria.
1
61
3
1904,
le
15
10
9
1905,
24 12 2
1906,
22 19 10
30
20
7
X
Ch
10
Unknown.
Harbour.
Peak.
Kowloon,
Villages.
ין
30
1
13
1-
5
0 63129
AI
14
C
19 1 102
83
13
9
10
$
24
11 7
15
01761103
To make the above figures taliv with the Table of total deaths 12 deaths of Non-Chinese must be added for 1994, 4 such deaths for 1905, and 13 such deaths for 1906.
These figures show that there is still work to be done within the City, especially in the Wong-nei-cheong Valley (No. 1 Health District), and in Districts 2 and 9, while the work that has already been done needs constant supervision. Kowloon and the outlying villages are necessarily so scattered that it will take some years to produce as marke i a reduction in the Malaria mortality there as we have already obtained within the City limits; the large increase in Kowloon for 1946 is almost entirely accounted for by the Kowloon-Canton rail- way works.
The fact must also not be overlooked that the malarial infection is not in all cases contracted locally, for the Chinese population is constantly receiving additions from the nailand of China, and the resident Chinese pay somewhat frequent visits to their native land, but for the purposes of comparison the figures given are fairly reliable as an indica- tion of the districts which vet need attention.
In regard to the question of cost the Government had expended up to the end of 1955 the sum of $47,900 (approximately $5,000) on measures for the prevention of Malaria-- mainly the training of ullahs, and the formation of concrete channels for the smaller mountain streams, while it was anticipated that, at the end of 1906 the total sum expended would amount to $61,500 or approximately £6,500.
For this comparatively small capital expenditure we have obtained a reduction in the average number of admissions per annum for Malaria to the Government Civil Hospital from 490 during the seven years 1897-1993 to 24 during the past three years. The average cost of each patient in the Government Hospitals of this Colony, after deducting the fees paid by such of them as are able to contribute towards their maintenance, and exclusive of all capital expenditure on buildings, or interest thereon, is $2.34 per day and the average stay of malarial patients in the Government Hospitals last year was 6.3 days, so that, in regard to this item alone there is an immediate return of $3,685, or six per cent, interest on the capital expenditure, on anti-malarial measures.
In a like manuer the average number of admissions per annum for Malaria to the Tung Wa Hospital has fallen from 438 during the seven years 1897-1903 to 204 during the past three years, but as we have no data as to the cost of patients per head per day in
this institution, we are unable to express this saving in dollars.
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