ORDERS OF GOVERNMENT.

                                 No. 1036 /XVI —231B/7-7 OF 1899.

                                                RESOLUTION.

                                    SANITATION DEPARTMENT.

                              Dated Naini Tal, the 30th September 1899.

READ—

Annual Report on Vaccination in the North-Western Provinces and Oudh for 1898-99.

OBSERVATIONS.—The report was due on the 1st July, but the
complete manuscripts were not received by the Press till the 24th
August, and the report did not reach Government till the 9th September.
The Officiating Sanitary Commissioner has submitted a separate explan-
ation of the delay, which was due to changes in the superior staff,
necessitated by Colonel Thomson, Sanitary Commissioner, suddenly
taking leave in April, and consequent inexperience of the officer in
charge of the 1st Circle.

2.     The period covered by the report is that of the three years
ending the 31st March 1899, though the year 1898-99 is more partic-
ularly referred to. The total number of Assistant Superintendents of
Vaccination in 1898-99 was 49, and of vaccinators 920. Supervision
of vaccination is exercised in the districts of Allahabad, Benares,
Lucknow, Agra, Bareilly, Cawnpore, Gorakhpur, and Dehra Dún, and
in the hill tracts, by the Deputy Sanitary Commissioners, and else-
where by the District Civil Surgeons; and this arrangement, which
was made in 1893, is reported to work satisfactorily. For the three
years ending the 31st March 1896 the average number of vaccinations
performed in a year was 1,428,583, and the average number of success-
ful primary vaccinations, 1,245,074. The corresponding figures for
the following three years were 1,436,884 and 1,239,532. The number
of successful primary vaccinations (1,227,261) in 1898-99 was some-
what less than that (1,308,941) in 1896-97, but more than that
(1,182,395) in 1897-98. The reasons given for the fall in 1897-98 are
the low birth rate during the famine in 1897, the reduced condition of
children owing to famine, which rendered them unfit for operation, and
the deputation of a considerable number of vaccinators on plague duty
Though the places of men so deputed were supplied, the temporary
employés neither commanded the same confidence, nor did the work
as well as the permanent men. The Government accepts the opinion
that, in the absence of such a necessity as that caused by plague,
it is not usually advisable to withdraw vaccinators from their regular
duties.

3.    The total number of persons successfully vaccinated per 1,000
of the population was 28.87 in 1896-97, 25.97 in 1897-98, and 26.92 in
1898-99. In reviewing the triennial report for 1893—96, the Gov-
ernment remarked that the greatest progress during that period was
observable in Oudh (where, at an earlier date, vaccination had been very
backward), except in Sultánpur, Bahraich, and Gonda; and that