OCR Text |
Show HEALTH NEWS Physicians and local health officers of-ficers reported a total of 324 resident re-sident cases of communicable diseases for the week ending January 23. Three hundred and eighty-five cases were reported for the same week last year and 234 for the previous week this year. Chickenpox leads the list of all communicable diseases in the number of cases reported for the week and increased from 103 for the previous week to 135 cases this week. In a weekly report from the U. S. Public Health service dat- ed Dec. 13, 1947, it states mat "the current incidence of whooping whoop-ing cough is higher than that for any other prior year since 1942, and the cumulative total to date is above that for any prior year since 1943. Both whooping cough and measles call for special attention at-tention by parents and health officers during the coming season." sea-son." Although the number of whoop ing cough cases has decreased in Utah over a period of years, the death rate has remained at a fairly high level. During the five year period 1941 to 1945, there was a yearly average of five deaths from whooping cough per year and a great majority of those deaths were in children under one year of age. This week fifteen cases have been reported in the state, bringing the total for the year to forty-seven cases. The following is a list of all reportable diseases for the week: chickenpox, 135; infantile paralysis, paraly-sis, 1; influenza, 55; measles, 11; German measles, 2; mumps, 23; pneumonia, 2; scarlet fever, 36; septic sore throat, 5; tuberculosis 3; tularemia, 1; undulant fever, 1; whooping cough, 15; gonorrhea 17; syphilis, 12; ringworm of the scalp, 10: and rheumatic fever, 1. |