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HONG KONG ANNUAL REPORT
attendances at all centres amounted to 61,118. Diagnostic tests including biopsies, antibiotic sensitivity tests, fungus culture and patch testing for allergy are carried out at all centres.
Over 150 cases were referred to the Queen Mary Hospital for radiotherapy of skin conditions. Neurodermatitis is now being treated with hydrocortisone lotion, using the vibra puncture tech- nique, and a notable innovation has been the use of an oral anti- biotic, which is particularly suitable for ringworm of the hair, body and nails, for the treatment of fungus infections.
A simple classification of the common skin diseases encountered in Hong Kong, comprising 45 headings, has been compiled in order that a year-to-year record of the incidence and distribution of these diseases can be maintained.
Malaria. Despite one of the longest wet seasons on record the number of cases of malaria notified was only 442, as against 659 during 1958. Notifications are compulsory and, as usual, reached a peak during the last quarter of the year. There was one death recorded as due to malaria and again, as in the previous year, the victim had been the subject of repeated blood transfusions, this time for a malignant condition of the blood.
In the urban areas, consisting of Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and New Kowloon and certain limited areas in the New Terri- tories, anti-larval operations directed against anopheline breeding are maintained continuously.
The major part of the New Territories, where the wet cultiva- tion of rice is practised, is not controlled; the only protected areas are Cheung Chau and Hei Ling Chau Islands, the prisons at Chi Ma Wan and Tai Lam, the Shek Pik dam area and Rennie's Mill Camp. There is a continuing influx of large numbers of infected individuals into the unprotected areas as a result of the traffic between China and the New Territories. The numbers, estimated at one million persons annually, make surveillance as a quarantine measure impractical; nor is interruption of transmission or eradica- tion of malaria by either anti-adult or anti-larval measures yet a practicable proposition.
The cost of control by anti-larval methods is 37 cents (approxi- mately fivepence halfpenny) per capita per annum,
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