ENG-1957 — Page 177

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HONG KONG ANNUAL REPORT

year. The seasonal rise in 1957 was also later than usual, there being no appreciable increase in enteric cases until July instead of in April or May as in previous years. The decline in incidence that usually takes place at the onset of winter was also delayed. This change in the seasonal pattern may have been due to the exceptionally heavy rain- fall early in the summer.

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A total of 728 cases was notified during the year, deaths, giving a case fatality rate of 4.5% as compared with 789 cases, 48 deaths and a case fatality rate of 6.1% in 1956.

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Anti-typhoid inoculation was offered to members of the public throughout the year and intensified from May to July, when 69,693 first doses, 51,144 second doses and 83,487 booster doses were given during the annual anti-typhoid in- oculation campaign.

Control measures included general sanitary hygiene, free immunization with T.A.B., search for and supervision of carriers, and education of the public in general and personal hygiene. During the year 13 chronic carriers were detected in the course of investigation of contacts and were dealt with by Health Officers.

Diphtheria. Notifications of this infection showed an in- crease of 525 over that of the previous year, being 1,239 as against 714. The rise was most marked in the last quarter of the year, when 770 cases were reported as compared with 258 in the first, 94 in the second and 117 in the third quarter.

The total number of deaths due to diphtheria was 129, giving a case fatality rate of 10.4% as against 10.5% in 1956. As is to be expected, most of the cases were in the o- 4 age group.

A point of interest was the comparatively high incidence in the New Territories, with, e.g., a total of 121 cases in the last quarter of the year as against 770 for the whole Colony in the same period.