ENG-1961 — Page 172

HEALTH

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dangerous food, public eating places, water supplies, fly breeding and sanitation. Large quantities of cut fruit, damaged vegetables and unprotected cooked food were seized.

The high degree of public co-operation throughout the outbreak was of great help in enforcing preventive measures. This was largely due to the steady flow of news, advice and publicity issued to the public through the Information Services Department. All the leading Kaifong Associations actively participated in the cam- paign by urging members and residents in their districts to come forward for inoculation and to observe strictly the advice given on the rules of hygiene.

In the New Territories the Rural Committees gave the same invaluable help, while Village Representatives assisted in chlori- nating thousands of wells.

Epidemiological investigations have proved that this outbreak was due to Vibrio comma of the Ogawa group and an El Tor strain. This is not regarded by the International Sanitary Authori- ties as a quarantinable disease, but for all practical purposes it is cholera, particularly in the local environmental conditions of Hong Kong with its very high population density, restricted_water supplies and lack of modern sanitation in large parts of the urban area. The majority of clinical cases encountered had all the classical symptoms of cholera and were gravely ill. Epidemics of El Tor paracholera can result in high mortality rates and can be very widespread if allowed to go unchecked.

COMMUNICABLE

OTHER COMMUNICABLE DISEASES

Notifications of other communicable diseases showed a slight rise due to increases in the number of cases of measles, chickenpox, poliomyelitis and bacillary dysentery. The mortality rate from such diseases was higher than that of the previous year due mainly to an increase in the number of deaths from measles and to a lesser extent from chickenpox and poliomyelitis. A table showing cases of, and deaths from, communicable diseases in the period 1957-61 is at Appendix VII.

Tuberculosis. The campaign against tuberculosis is a combined operation in which the Government, the Hong Kong Anti- Tuberculosis Association and the Haven of Hope Sanatorium at