ENG-1970 — Page 124

HEALTH

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The estimated expenditure of the Medical and Health Department for the financial year 1970-1 is $170,534,400. To this should be added subventions totalling an estimated $64,023,600 to many non- government medical institutions and organisations. The estimated capital expenditure for the Medical and Health Department during 1970-1 on hospital and other buildings, including furniture and equipment, is $17,872,000.

COMMUNICABLE DISEASES

Cholera has not appeared in Hong Kong since the notification of the last case in October 1969. Routine sampling of nightsoil for cholera vibrio was continued on a year-round basis as part of the surveillance programme. All the samples were negative. An annual inoculation drive was started in April and continued into the summer months. As the disease has become endemic in this part of the world, special preventive measures are continuing and quarantine restrictions are maintained in respect of neighbouring countries declared infected.

Tuberculosis remains Hong Kong's principal community health problem. It is believed from the figures which are available that approximately one per cent of the population of Hong Kong is suffering from active pulmonary tuberculosis requiring treatment. Males are affected at least twice as commonly as females, the disease being especially common in elderly men, while drug addicts are a group particularly prone. Tuberculosis in the young is now relatively uncommon and the former large numbers of acute and often fatal cases of tuberculosis in infants are now no longer seen.

Government, either by subvention or directly through the Govern- ment Chest Service, spends more than $19,000,000 yearly on control measures. The tuberculosis control programme is a combined effort between the Government Chest Service, the Hong Kong Anti- Tuberculosis and Thoracic Diseases Association and the Junk Bay Medical Relief Council, while certain other organisations, including the Tung Wah Group and the Caritas Medical Centre also provide treatment facilities, maintained mainly with the aid of substantial government subventions. The Government Chest Service operates six full-time clinics equipped with radiological facilities and 15 subsidiary centres throughout the Colony. In addition it maintains