Triennial report on vaccination in Assam.

  • Assam
Date:
[1917]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Triennial report on vaccination in Assam. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    r TRIENNIAL REPORT ON VACCINATION IN ASSAM FOR THE TEARS 1914-15, 1915-16 & 1916-17. 1. This report deals with vaccination work in the triennial period 1914-15 to 1916-17 and more especially with the last year of that n ro uo ory. triennium, short notes for the preceding two years having been furnished with the annual vaccination returns for those years. I held charge of the Department during the year 1916-17 except for a period of three months from 15th August to l4th November 1916 when the Hon’ble Colonel H. E. Banatvala, i.m.s., Inspector General of Civil Hospitals, officiated for me. 2. The number of vaccinators employed in 1916-17 was 306, as compared with _ . . 303 in 1915-16, 328 in 1914-15 and 338, the average of the preceding triennium. The decrease in the number or vaccinators is due to the abolition during the triennium under review of the licensed vaccinators, who were formerly employed in the districts of Kamrup, Sibsagar, Lakhimpur and Sylhet. In their place that number of paid vaccinators should have been employed which was estimated to be necessary for the vaccination work of the district, supposing that each man did a fair share of work, this being estimated at about 1,000 operations per man. The full complement of vaccinators estimated to be necessary when these changes were initiated was not employed in Kamrup. The average number of vaccinators employed in this district in the previous triennium was 75, but in 1916-17 only 40 vaccinators were employed, against the total of 49 estimated to be necessary when the licensed vaccinators were discharged. This district has a very high small-pox mortality and this deficiency in the number of vaccinators is regrettable, for as elsewhere remarked in this report, to my certain knowledge there are many villages in the remoter parts of this district which are not visited by vaccinators for years on end. I suggest that in future no reduction of the approved number of vaccinators employed in any district should be permitted without the sanction of the Sanitary Commissioner. Licensed vaccinators are now employed only in the district of Goalpara, and rules for the control of these vaccinators under the Local Self-Government Act have been framed and submitted to the Local Administration. Vaccination on tea gardens was, as usual, performed by garden medical officers. A small number of operations is reported to have been performed in jails and among railway employees, by their respective medical officers. The average number of persons vaccinated by each vaccinator was 1,080, as against 961 in 1915-16 and 907 in 1914-15. The district rates vary considerably from 1,414 per vaccinator in Cachar to 594 in Lakhimpur. The subjoined statement shows the number of vaccinators employed in each district, and the number of vaccination operations performed by each. An anoma¬ lous feature of these figures is the large number of operations per vaccinator returned by hill districts, and the comparatively small number per vaccinator
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