ME DE DEMONE FER INIT LIFE CHAINS
H
FIGURE 2
INFANT AND NEO-NATAL MORTALITY RATE 1956 - 30
Infant Mortality
HER-MAFAL
8. The steady decline in infant mortality has been due to improve- ment in environmental conditions, development of maternal and child health services, and increasing public appreciation of the value of these services in the maintenance of health amongst infants and mothers. Among the major causes of infant mortality there have been great re- ductions in mortality from the preventable diseases, particularly bron- chopneumonia, gastro-enteritis, tuberculosis and, in the last three years, measles. There has aslo been a steady reduction in mortality from prematurity, due to improvement in the midwifery and maternal health services. As has been the experience elsewhere, congenital malforma- tions and other diseases of the new-born are proving more intractable, and mortality from these causes bas. as yet, been little affected. As shown in Figure 2, infant and neonatal mortality rates have remained relatively steady since 1965, with only the minor fluctuations to be expected in any community when mortality has reached a low level. Maternal Mortality
9. Here also the statistics pertaining to Hong Kong have attained the standards prevailing in the technically advanced countries of the world. During recent years great improvements in mortality have been effected in the fields of toxaemia of pregnancy, haemorrhage and puer- peral sepsis. There has been some reduction in mortality from
abortion and ectopic pregnancy, and deaths attributed to other diseases occurring during pregnancy or childbirth have also decreased in numbers. General Mortality
10. The marked social and economic changes which have occurred in Hong Kong during the years following the Second World War are reflected in the mortality trends and patterns of diseases, which have changed considerably in the past two decades. Improvements in the general level of public health are demonstrated by the decline in pro- portionate mortality from infectious, respiratory and intestinal dis- eases, while the ageing of the population (which is, however, predomi- nantly young) is reflected in the increasing mortality from heart and hypertensive, cerebro-vascular and neoplastic diseases.
II. The first five leading causes of death are cancer, diseases of the heart including hypertensive diseases, pneumonia, cerebro-vascular disease and tuberculosis in that order. As in many countries in different parts of the world, the death rate from cancer continued to increase, rising from approximately 30 per 100,000 population for both sexes in 1950 to 100.6 per 100,000 in 1970. In the local female com- munity the common causes of death from cancer are cancer of the breast and cancer of the uterine cervix, and in the community as a whole the common cancer deaths are cancer of the lung, primary cancer of the liver, nasopharyngeal cancer and cancer of the stomach.
12. The Eighth Revision of the International Statistical Classifica- Lion of Diseases, Injuries and Causes of Death published by the World Health Organization came into use on 1st January, 1969. All registered medical practitioners were supplied with a supplement of the Eighth Revision and were requested to ensure that the nomenclature of causes of death given by them on death certificates agreed with those in the International Classification. Use is being made of computer facilities in mortality statistics and it is hoped that this will result in a better handling of the mortality data.
COMMUNICABLE DISEASES (Tables 13-16)
13. The total number of notifications of communicable diseases during 1970 was (3,473, of which tuberculosis formed 74.8%. Satis- factory progress continued to be made in the control of diphtheria and poliomyelitis. The incidences of bacillary dysentery and enteric fever which remained at about the same level in the past years have shown a tendency to decline. Trends in the incidence of these four diseases
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