CO885-(18-19) — Page 18

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

C.O.8

885

18 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

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of population, deaths from sleeping sickness last year, existing cases, deserted villages or dwellings, and the occupations of the inhabitants; and especially as to the number of immigrants into the peninsula from infected and from non-infected areas, and the reasons for immigration. The following is a summary of the reports of this investigation and the figures contained therein :-

Entebbe

Analysis of Inhabitants of Entebbe Peninsula.

As taken by house to house investigation (Sleeping Sickness Extended Investigation,

May, 1906).

Total population-2,817.

Born in the village in which they now live Natives of peninsula who have changed villages for various reasons

763

623

1,386

1,431

Immigrants

2,817

Total

(Those whose residence is of so long duration that they cannot remember where they came from are counted as natives of the peninsula. The average residence in present villages of those who have changed villages is 4.6 years.)

Clase.

Analysis of Immigrants.

No.

No. with Five Years Average Residenco or more Residence) in Years.

From non-infected districts

i

403

205

5-17

From infected districts

431

01

3:5

From Lakeshore counties

(possibly infected). -

594

126

4:0

Total immigrants.

1,431

422

4:23

Deaths from Sleeping Sickness in the previous year.

Eastern side of the peninsula

Western side of the peninsula

469 22

Total

431

Cases found in the House-to-House Investigation.

Eastern side of peninsula Western side of the peninsula

38

3

Total

11

28*

The western side of the peninsula differs from the eastern in having little or no fly. All the villages west of and on the Kampala Road are reported to be beyond fly- range, their drinking-water and their markets fly-free, and the little sleeping sick. ness on that side to be all imported.

The medical officer (Dr. van Someren) says that, "possibly three or four (of the) huts vacated owing to the death of the previous owner from sleeping sickness exist in these villages, as far as I can ascertain, and are now occupied by others."

The percentage of deserted huts is very small. In only eleven cases of deserted or re-occupied huts had the previous owner died of sleeping sickness. (This point was unfortunately not gone into on the eastern side.)

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On the eastern side Dr. Uffman reports that, five-sixths of the huts are outside the fly area. But five-sixths of the watering-places are on the lake and are, there- The local markets used are fore, likely to be fly-infested in the majority of cases. outside the fly-area.

Both medical officers report that a certain number of the immigrants have come to escape from sleeping sickness elsewhere. Dr. Uffman says that the greatest mortality has been among these. Of the islanders he says, some, especially the Basesse, came over here to flee from the sleeping sickness.

In these cases it can

be seen from the out-of-all-proportion greater mortality among them from this disease that there can be no doubt that many of them

brought it over from

the islands."

ני

It is probable that the number of cases of sleeping sickness as stated in these reports is too small, since the people even now are much inclined to hide away their sick as far as possible. But, even if this number were quadrupled, it would still remain comparatively favourable. Indeed, the nct result as a whole appeared to me to be unexpectedly favourable, and there is no doubt that the facts and figures given would compare very favourably with any that could be collected at any other part of the lake-shore from Entebbe to Kavirondo.

It will be seen that most, if not all, of the larger trading villages on the main road, with which the imported labourers would chiefly be brought in contact in buying food, &c., are outside the fly-range. The station of Entebbe itself, I cañ confidently assert, now offers practically no danger whatever of infection to imported labourers or other natives who might visit it, but it seemed possible--among the very large number of imported labourers who have worked in the station during the last four or five years, in their journeys to and fro and in their diffusion among the villages of the peninsula and of the neighbouring coast, which was unavoidable to some extent that there might have occurred infection of persons who might have otherwise escaped, though very little of the station labour, except in parts of the Botanical Gardens and in the actual clearing of the foreshore to abolish fly, has in time past been within the fly-range. I therefore determined to enquire into this question of imported labour so far as circumstances would allow.

These labourers, then, have come from all parts of the Protectorate except from the Buvuma group of islands, Usoga, and the Nile Province, that is to say, both from infected and from non-infected areas. But, since the lake-shore counties are in a greater or less degree infected areas, it would be difficult, unless one could trace individuals, which is impossible, to decide or even to surmise in what propor- tion of cases infection had been contracted at Entebbe and in what proportion it had been acquired, previously or subsequently, in their own neighbourhood or in the course of their own traffic with the lake-shore. Even in the case of the inland provinces and counties the same difficulty exists, for nothing is more clearly shown than that the very extensive traffic which I have mentioned in the body of this report, of the hinterland with the corresponding lake-shore, is responsible for the great majority of infections which have occurred throughout the epidemic.

One would expect, however, that, if infection were heing carried inland to any great extent by these imported labourers from Entebbe, imported cases of sleeping sickness would have become distributed over these inland counties in proportion to the number of labourers supplied by each during the last four or five years, when the epidemic has been at its maximum; and also that the number of deaths from sleeping sickness in each, which is at present our only guide to the prevalence of the disease in the interior, would show some direct relation to the number of labourers supplied. There is, however, no evidence of the existence of imported cases in the inland districts in any proportion to the amount of labour supplied, nor does the number of deaths show any relation at all to the number of labourers, but the number of deaths in inland counties and provinces, as in the lake- shore counties, bears a very definite relation to their distance from the lake-shore and infected islands and to the relative intensity of infection at the corresponding or nearest lake-shore with which the greater part of the native traffic is carried ca

The following table shows the number of labourers supplied in each year from each country or province from 1901-1905 and the number of deaths from sleeping sickness in each, as returned by the chiefs in 1905:-