Chapter 9
Public Health and
Urban Services
Public Health
General Health
No case of cholera, plague, smallpox, relapsing fever, typhus or yellow fever, occurred during 1954 in Hong Kong. The major serious diseases affecting the population are still tuberculosis, the pneumonias, diph- theria and gastro-enteritis in childhood. The case mortality rate, in so far as it can be estimated, has shown a decline. Malaria is a comparatively minor problem, the number of notified cases this year being the lowest on record.
The diseases which proved to be most troublesome were those associated with overcrowding, dirt and ignorance of hygiene and these were undoubtedly encouraged by the restrictions placed upon the use of piped water. A series of fires in squatter areas which rendered tens of thousands of persons homeless created a big sanitary problem but, in spite of this, the incidence of typhoid and dysentery was not as high as in 1953.
The crude general death rate remained remarkably low suggesting that the number of young adults is relatively high, but without a census no accurate estimate of the age and sex distribution of the population can be made, nor can specific mortality and morbidity rates be calculated.
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