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PART IV: HEALTH
337. One of the problems with which the Corporation has been faced is that of maintaining the health of its employees, and the most careful attention has been paid to services for preventing and dealing with sickness and disease.
338. On the whole the health of Europeans and Africans has been good. There have been small outbreaks of epidemics, such as typhoid, amoebic dysentry, but none reached any serious proportions.
339. There is no doubt that modern insecticides have saved a tremendous amount of sickness. No one will be able to calculate what the Corporation owes to these preparations, for whereas the standards of hygiene have been poor, the degree of fly infestation has been remarkably low in most areas.
340. A table showing incidence of disease is in Appendix VI (1).
THE HEALTH SERVICE
341. The organisation of the health service was divided into two sections under the direction of a Headquarters in Kongwa which was responsible for advising the Management on policy.
Preventive Medicine
342. The first endeavour of the Health Service was to prevent illness in spite of the risks to which workers were exposed. This preventive service was controlled in each Region by the Regional Health Officer or Medical Officer of Health responsible for advising the Area or Regional Manager in local health matters outside the hospital, and for carrying out such preven tive medicine measures in the area as require medical knowledge and equip. ment. The Regional Health Officer was also responsible for the supervision and control of unit health centres within the area.
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343. The staff of the Regional Health Officer depended on the size and difficulties that have been encountered, but has consisted of British Health Inspectors and Health Visitors who were responsible for the supervision of all technical preventive medicine measures, such as malaria control, tsetse control, the inspection of dwelling places and workshops. They were helped by a number of African Health Assistants whose duties lay chiefly in the inspection of African dwelling quarters, African sanitation, tsetse, rodent and malaria control, water and spraying duties.
344. The regional health staff undertook nutritional surveys, and organised systems of town cleansing, etc., the regional health office were responsible for the provision and distribution of insecticides and other hygiene appliances for the use of the general population.
Diseases-Various
345. Respiratory diseases have been the biggest single disease throughout the year, as the table in Appendix VI (1) shows. Although living conditions and general sanitation have not been fully satisfactory, preventive medicine services have been active and no considerable outbreak of disease has occurred.
one in
In Kongwa, two cases of typhoid, one in an Asian, has occu
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