[Report 1960] / Medical Officer of Health, St Helens County Borough.

  • St. Helens (Merseyside, England). County Borough Council.
Date:
1960
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1960] / Medical Officer of Health, St Helens County Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    7/110 (page 5)
    TO THE MAYOR, ALDERMEN AND COUNCILLORS OF THE COUNTY BOROUGH OF ST. HELENS Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen, I beg to submit the Report on the health of St. Helens for the year 1960. The following statement shows some of the principal statistical rates during the past five years. 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 Birth rate per 1,000 of population 16.8 17.2 16.9 17.1 17.5 Death rate per 1,000 of population _ _ 10.7 10.7 11.4 10,8 11.5 Infant Mortality per 1,000 live births 27.4 31.0 35.8 24.3 39.2 Maternal Mortality per TOOGc total births 1.04 0.51 0.51 1.02 0.50 Tuberculosis death rate per 1,000 of pooulation ... . 0.14 0.16 0.17 0.12 0.09 The birth rate at 17.5 per 1,000 estimated population was a small increase over that for 1959. The infant mortality rate showed a sudden increase from 24.3 per 1,000 live births in 1959 to 39.2 in 1960. Such a marked fluctua¬ tion was obviously due to some unusual factor, and this was the epidemic of \irus pneumonia amongst infants which occurred in February, March and April of the year. This accounted for fifteen deaths alone, and undoubtedly led to the marked increase in the infant mortality rate. Later comment is made regarding this in the section dealing with Maternity and Child Welfare. The incidence of the main infectious diseases was extremely low during the year. For the ninth successive year the town was free from diphtheria and no case of poliomyelitis occurred. One unusual outbreak of food poisoning in a very mild form was traced to the consumption of raw coconut imported into the country from the east. It was later found that the occurrence of these very mild cases was linked with the discovery of infected material in other parts of the country, mainly at the sea ports. During the investigation, close contact was maintained with Medical Officers from the Ministry, who visited the district to examine the local situation. Much work was done in the immunisation and vaccination service during the year. Some 16,000 people were vaccinated against poliomyelitis, a great number of these being third injections to people who had already received two injections in the previous year. It was estimated by the end of the year that as regards the child population between six months and fifteen years of age, over 80% had been immunised. This can be considered a very satis¬ factory result and reflects great credit on the hard work done by members of the staff: