Report on Vaccination in Bengal
        for the year 1927-28.

I have the honour to submit the
following report on vaccination in Bengal
during the year 1927-28

I was in charge of the Vaccination
Bureau in the Provincial Public Health
Department throughout the year.

2.     Strength of staff.—Owing to the
absorption in the rural public health
organisation of some of the vaccination
inspecting officers, their number in rural
areas decreased from 143 in the previ-
ous year to 125; the aggregate number of
vaccinators employed was 1,535 against
1,596 in 1926-27. Dacca, Howrah and
South Suburban Municipalities employ-
ed three Inspectors while Midnapur
Municipality paid a temporary allowance
to two Sanitary Inspectors for super-
vising vaccination. The number of vac-
cinators employed by the mufassal muni-
cipalities increased from 144 to 157 dur-
ing the year under review. The Corpo-
ration of Calcutta retained the same
number of Inspectors (16) and vaccina-
tors (58) as in the preceding year. The
Provincial Department maintained two
Special Inspectors for executive and
research work.

3.     General Vaccination Statistics.—
From the following statement showing the
number of operations performed in the
province during the year under review,
it appears that the primary vaccinations
increased by 10.7 per cent., re-vaccina-
tions by 33.2 per cent. and the total num-
ber of operations by 21.3 per cent. over
those in the previous year. The average
number of persons vaccinated by each
vaccinator was 2,145 against 1,761 during
the preceding year. 94.1 per cent. of
the primary and 53.3 per cent. of
the re-vaccination cases in which results
were known were reported to have been
successful as against 95.1 and 52.09 res-
pectively in 1926-27.

4.     Recess Vaccination.—In order to
cope with the small-pox epidemic during
the non-season period, recess vaccination
with intensive campaigns in some dis-
tricts had to be resorted to as in the pre-
vious year. A total of 1,162,525 opera-
tions including 335,901 primary and
826,624 re-vaccinations was performed
during this period against 393,875,
113,119 and 280,756 vaccinations respec-
tively, done during the corresponding
period of the previous year, giving an
increase of 195.1 per cent. in the total.
196.1 per cent, in the primary and 194.4
per cent. in the number of re-vaccina-
tions.

5.     Vaccination in rural areas.—The
table below shows the number of opera-
tions performed in the rural areas :—

With the exception of the Asansol Min-
ing Settlement, Darjeeling, Bogra and
Chittagong Hill Tracts, all the districts
showed an increase in the total number of
their vaccinations. This increase and
decrease will be commented upon in the
next paragraph. Suffice it to say here
that the increase was most marked in
Malda and Midnapur districts where it
was 140.8 and 100.9 per cent. respec-
tively over the preceding year.

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