Annual report of the Sarawak Government Medical Department.

  • Sarawak. Medical Department.
Date:
[1948]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report of the Sarawak Government Medical Department. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    17/80 (page 9)
    (iv) Infant Mortality. Deaths under 1 year registered during 1948 number 660. From this figure an infant mortality rate of 104.53 per 1000 live births is calculable. The corresponding figures for the previous year were 557 deaths and an infant mortality rate of 75, The racial distribution of the infant deaths was as follows:— Race Infant Deaths Births Infantile Mortality Rate European (including Eurasian) — 13 — Chinese 183 3009 6.82 Malay 271 1691 16.26 Melanau 72 524 137.40 Sea Dayak .. 43 468 91.88 Land Davak 33 141 234.04 Other Asiatic 12 119 10.84 Other Indigenous 46 349 131.85 660 6,314 IV. GENERAL SANITATION. (a) Sewage Disposal. There are no major schemes for the water borne disposal of sewage. In the towns of Kuching, Sibu and Miri a few premises have private * septic tank installations. This apart, the bazaar areas of these towns have a bucket nightsoil service, a double bucket service where equip¬ ment has been available to replace that lost or worn out during the Japanese occupation. These services have not been, and are not, entirely satisfactory. In Kuching, nightsoil from the buckets is disposed of in a system of three septic tanks sited on the river bank in an area which was downstream and remote from the town when the tanks were built. The town is developing downstream and the nightsoil disposal area, being no longer remote, may, in the near future, have to be moved. Pit latrines or riparian latrines serve the less congested areas and the kampong areas of Kuching, but there are still many premises with¬ out latrines of any kind and owing to the high level of the ground water many of the existing pit latrines are unsatisfactory. In Sibu, which is sited on a small island in the Rejang River, substantial parts of which are flooded at times of high tide, a bucket system is in operation. The bucket contents in this town are disposed of directly in the river. Outside the towns and wherever it is possible, latrines are built over rivers and creeks. In the “longhouses” there are no latrines. Waste matter drops into the space below the house and is dealt with by the pigs.