Proceedings of the Hon'ble the Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab in the Home (Medical and Sanitary)
Department, No. 1118 S., dated 30th July 1903.
READ—
The Note on Vaccination in the Punjab for the year 1902-03 by Lieutenant-Colonel C. J.
Bamber, I. M. S., D. P. H. (Camb.), Sanitary Commissioner, Punjab.
REMARKS.—Plague had a considerable effect during the year 1902-03 in
checking vaccinations. This effect, however, was felt in the district of Kángra
and the Simla Hill States, where plague was not prevalent and where the people
feared that they would be subjected not to vaccination, but to anti-plague
inoculation. In the plains districts, where plague is now well known, vaccinations
were not checked by the prevalence of the epidemic and the operations specially
undertaken for anti-plague inoculation. In these districts greater attention
was paid to vaccination than in the period immediately preceding 1902-03,
when it had been thought desirable to restrict vaccination operations on account
of the plague; a large increase occurred in the number of persons vaccinated
and no unusual difficulties were experienced by the vaccinators in doing their
work.
2. The total number of persons vaccinated (667,544) was slightly lower
than in 1901-02 (668,144), but the number of primary vaccinations increased
from 511‚121 in the previous year to 582,626 in the year under report. The
district and special staffs performed 626,653 and 34,288 operations respectively.
The Cantonment and Dispensary staffs vaccinated only 6,397 and 206 persons.
The strength of the district and special staffs was practically the same as in
1901-02, but whereas the former did 35,866 more operations than in the previous
year the latter did 36,978 less. The increase in the work of the District staff
was due to the increase (95,832) in the number of primary vaccinations done,
chiefly in the plague-infected districts of the plains. The number of re-vacci-
nations performed by the District staff decreased by 59,966, and the greater
part of this decrease (37,871 in the Kángra District) as well as the whole
of the decrease that took place in the work done by the special staff (24,471
primary vaccinations and 12,507 re-vaccinations) was due to the refusal of
vaccination by the people of the Hills, referred to in paragraph 1 of this Review.
A decrease of 10,565 re-vaccinations took place in the Ráwalpindi District, but
the reason for this is not stated.
3. The Deputy Sanitary Commissioner was during part of the winter
employed on work connected with anti-plague inoculations, and in consequence
his tours of inspection were restricted, but the total number of inspections
performed by all the supervising agencies was satisfactory.
4. The percentage of success in both primary vaccinations and re-
vaccinations attained by the District and Special staffs increased, but the
percentages for the former staff are considerably higher than for the latter,
being 95.92 for primary vaccinations and 61.01 for re-vaccinations as compared
with 85.99 and 51.84 respectively.
5. The cost of the Department remained practically the same as in the
previous year, but as the number of successful vaccinations (both primary and
re-vaccinations) rose from 571,430 in 1901-02 to 607,236 in the year under
report, the average cost of each successful operation declined by 1 pie to
Re. 0-2-6.
6. The report by Captain Harvey, I. M. S., Deputy Sanitary Commis-
sioner, on experiments with vaselinated and glycerinated vaccine pulp has been
received and is under consideration.