Report on the public health / Southern Rhodesia.

  • Southern Rhodesia. Department of Health.
Date:
[1931]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the public health / Southern Rhodesia. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    11/36 (page 7)
    Infectious Diseases, 1931. Name of disease. European Native Cases Deaths Cases Deaths 1. Scarlet fever 12 2. Chicken-pox 111 84 3. Influenza 20 3 4 Whooping cough 75 61 ... 5. Typhoid fever 57 3 40 12 6. Para-typhoid fever ... ... ... ... 7. Diphtheria 45 1 7 1 8. Measles ... 169 93 9. Rubella (German measles) ... ... 10 10. Cerebro-spinal meningitis 2 1 19 7 11. Acute poliomyelitis ... 3 ... 1 ... 12. Mumps ... ... ... ... ... 13. Erysipelas 2 2 ... 14. Undulant fever (Malta fever) 14 ... ... ... 15. Trypanosomiasis • • . . . . „ * ... 16. Small-pox ... ... 43 1 In addition to the above, European deaths were registered from the following grave infective diseases, of which there is no record as to the number of cases:— European Deaths, 1931: (1) Malaria 24, blackwater fever 12—total 36; (2) tuberculosis (respiratory) 13, other forms 1-—total 14; (3) dysentery 6. (2) Malaria. There were registered 24 European deaths from malaria and 12 from black- water fever, making a total of 36—an increase of 8 upon the previous year, when the number was 28. This increase is probably accounted for by the somewhat continuous rainfall along the north-eastern portion of the plateau facilitating the development of mosquitoes in that part where the rural population is most dense. In the total for the last five years malaria and blackwater fever rank fourth in the list of diseases causing European deaths, for 8 per cent, of which they are responsible, including 8 per cent, of the deaths of babies under one year of age. As a cause of death they are surpassed among diseases only by pneumonia, cancer and heart disease. Further, malaria is responsible for much debility and illness which involves economic loss to the European community. The problem of malaria is therefore one of the first importance to the people of Southern Rhodesia. A contribution of great practical importance in connection with the control of malaria was made during the year by the discoveries of Professor Swellengrebel in the Union of South Africa. Professor Swellengrebel’s thesis is briefly as follows :— Only two of the 20 species of anopheline mosquitoes in the Union are of importance as vectors of the malarial parasite, viz., A. gambiaz (costalis) and A. funestus. Further, these two insects have highly restricted breeding places. Their larvte or embryos are found only in certain places, and are absent from all other collections of water. It should therefore be possible bv attention to these particular breeding places (species sanitation) to eliminate malaria from a district. The problem of controlling malaria by anti-larval measures is thus greatly reduced; for example, the time-honoured swamp may be neglected as far as the Union is concerned, and indeed is better left alone, as partial draining of swamps may turn them from the breeding places of harmless mosquitoes into suitable habitations for the vectors of malaria. Most large collections of water are harmless as breeding places. Most collections of water round human habitations breed anophelines, but only the minority breed malaria carriers. The majority breed other types of mosquitoes interesting to the entomologist, but not to the sanitarian. Professor Swellengrebel found that in the Union funestus larva* are found only in the grassy, shaded edges of hill streams. They do not occur in seepage areas or in the natural or artificial swamps occurring in the course of streams. They are not found in standing water. v O