No. 580S.
FROM
SURGEON-COLONEL A. STEPHEN, M.B.,
Principal Medical Officer and Sanitary Commissioner, Assam,
To
THE SECRETARY TO THE CHIEF COMMISSIONER OF
ASSAM.
Shillong, the 16th May 1898.
SIR,
I HAVE the honour to forward the Vaccination Statements for the year 1897-
98, with the following remarks.
Number of vaccinators employed.
2. Annual Statement No. I gives the average number of vaccinators employed in
each district, as well as details of work done by paid and
licensed vaccinators. There were on an average 18 In-
spectors, 182 paid and 30 licensed vaccinators and ten apprentices employed during
the year, as against 18 Inspectors, 175 paid and 28 licensed vaccinators, and 6
apprentices in 1896-97. A licensed vaccinator was appointed in the Cachar district.
In the Sylhet district an additional paid vaccinator and 3 additional apprentices were
employed. In the Goalpara district the paid vaccinator was dismissed and 2 additional
licensed vaccinators were appointed. In the Kamrup district 4 additional paid
vaccinators were appointed and the services of one of the licensed vaccinators were
dispensed with. In the Darrang district an additional apprentice was appointed. In
the Nowgong district two additional paid vaccinators were appointed, and in the
Naga Hills district an extra paid vaccinator was employed.
Amount of work done by paid
and licensed vaccinators.
3. During the season, 255,583 persons were vaccinated by paid and licensed
vaccinators, of whom 143,468 were males and 112,115
were females. During 1896-97, 250,350 vaccinations were
done, so that 5,233 more operations were done during
1897-98 than during the previous year. Of the vaccinations done during 1897-98,
245,381 were primary and 10,202 were cases of re-vaccination, as against 243,307 primary
vaccinations and 7,043 re-vaccinations done during the previous season. There were
thus 2,074 more primary vaccinations and 3,159 more re-vaccinations done by the vacci-
nation staff than during 1896-97. Of those successfully vaccinated, 55,574 were infants
under one year of age, as against 44,472 infants successfully vaccinated during 1896-97.
Percentage of operations found
to be successful.
4. Of the 245,381 primary vaccinations done by paid and licensed vaccinators,
242,871, or 98.98 per cent., were reported to be successful,
and of the 10,202 re-vaccinations, 9,391, or 92.05 per cent.,
were successful. In 1896-97, 97.58 per cent. of the primary
vaccinations and 94.25 per cent. of the re-vaccinations were stated to have been successful.
In the Nowgong district, 16,537 out of 16,543 primary vaccinations done were reported to
be successful. I inspected a considerable number of primary vaccinations in this district,
and though the work was, on the whole, excellent, several of the vaccinations were unsuc-
cessful. I have requested the Civil Medical Officer of this district to examine the
vaccinators' registers of selected villages, to inspect all the children, whose names are
entered in the registers, present in these villages, and to let me know how many of
the children entered in the lists were produced, and how many of those produced were
found to be successfully vaccinated. With the exception of the results obtained in the
Naga and North Lushai Hills, in which the percentages of successful primary cases were,
respectively, 94.28 and 93.61, the proportion of cases reported to be successful in the
province was very high.
Proportion of population suc-
cessfully vaccinated.
5. Including successful vaccinations done by tea-garden agencies, 46.67 per 1,000
of the population of Assam were successfully vaccinated
during the year, as compared with 45.71 per 1,000 success-
fully vaccinated in 1896-97, and 34.12 per 1,000 success-
fully vaccinated on an average during the previous five vaccinating seasons.
B