ENG-1948 — Page 104

C. INFANT MORTALITY.

Although the deaths of infants under one year of age formed over a third of deaths for all ages, the number of infant deaths per

thousand live births was only 104.7. This figure com- pares with 617 for 1931, 327 for 1940, 109 for 1946, and 119 for 1947.

PRE-NATAL MORTALITY.

There were 1,251 still-births recorded in 1948, i.e. 26.4 per 1,000 live births.

D. MATERNAL MORTALITY

The maternal mortality rate for 1948 was 1.5 as compared with 1.64 for 1947.

E. NOTIFIABLE DISEASES

(a) Smallpox

Eight cases only of smallpox occurred with 2 deaths. This is the smallest number of cases that has occurred in any year since records were kept, and was due undoubtedly to the fact that 889,342 vaccinations were performed during the year making a total of 3,272,607 since the reoccupation of the Colony in August, 1945.

(b)

Cholera.

No cases of cholera occurred during the year.

(c) Enteric Fever.

There were 311 cases of enteric fever with 69 deaths giving a mortality rate of 22.2%. The cases appeared to be a sporadic nature but as might be expected the majority of them occurred during the hot weather.

(d) Cerebro-spinal meningitis.

Sixty nine cases occurred with 19 deaths giving a mortality rate of 27.5%. The greatest number of cases in any one month occurred in March (23).

(e) Diphtheria.

140 cases occurred with 49 deaths, a deaths rate of 35%. Of these cases 10 occurred during the first year of life, 36 in the age group 1-3 years and 59 in the 3-7 years group. 23,703 anti- diphtheria inoculations were performed during the year.

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