Report on the state of public health in Burma.

Date:
[1937]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the state of public health in Burma. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    32/212 (page 24)
    that offers itself is treatment directed to making all cases non-infectious but the very considerable expenses that this would entail are, perhaps, not fully realised by the lay public. In Rangoon at the General Hospital and the Ramkrishna Mission Hospital, the latter being aided by Rangoon 'Corporation, special facilities exist for the treatment of these diseases. The difficulty is that in outstation hospitals the problem of finance precludes an adequate provision in the hospital budget for the expensive drugs without which syphilis in particular cannot be successfully treated. , • • » , t'* A certain amount of propaganda work is carried on by this Depart¬ ment with a view to inculcating a spirit of clean living in the youth of the country, but there is little doubt that insufficient stress is laid •on this important subject in the health education of the people of this country and a good deal of spade work is necessary in this connection to overcome prejudice in these matters. At the time of writing, Government are once more actively investigating the possibilities of increased preventive work in this connection. Leprosy.—A reference to Statement VIB (a) which is a supplement to Annual Statement No. VIB, published in the Statistical Report of this Department, shows that 357 deaths were reported from this disease during the year under report. There is, however, no doubt but that it is a much more serious problem than would appear from these figures. The fact is that mortality from leprosy is recorded only in towns, and, therefore, we have no real information as to its incidence. The problem is not easy and it is not believed that the extension of compulsory notification would necessarily yield the information desired. Compulsory notification of this disease which at present is only in force in Monywa and Maymyo might result in even more evasion than exists at present with voluntary measures. The 357 deaths reported during the year show an increase of 65 deaths over the previous year and give a death rate of of 0'25. But these figures cannot be accepted as reliable as the largest number of deaths were recorded in Rangoon and Mandalay where leper asylums exist and consequently deaths are to be expected and are reported accurately. Such accurate information as does exist with regard to the incidence of leprosy in Burma, has been obtained from surveys that have been carried out in rural areas by the Public Health Department. These surveys show that the last recorded census figure of 11,127 lepers is very wide of the real total. A properly carried out survey revealed in the case of Meiktila District a figure of 16*57 lepers per 1,000 of population. It should be clearly understood that, while it is believed that the total number of persons afflicted with this dreadful disease may come to as many as 200,000, it is not thought