Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T14:31:29.166Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The epidemiology of infectious hepatitis in Israel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 May 2009

A. Michael Davies  and
A. Suchowolski
A. Michael Davies
Affiliation:
Department of Preventive Medicine, Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School and the Division of Epidemiology Ministry of Health, Jerusalem, Israel
A. Suchowolski
Affiliation:
Department of Preventive Medicine, Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School and the Division of Epidemiology Ministry of Health, Jerusalem, Israel
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

1. The incidence of infectious hepatitis calculated from official notifications fluctuated between 5·7 and 11·4 per 10,000 during the years 1949–57, while reports of the Workers' Sick Fund indicated a rate three to four times greater. The highest rates were between the ages 1 and 9, two-thirds of the cases being under 10. Mortality was very low.

2. Highest attack rates were seen under conditions of crowding, i.e. in agricultural schools, communal settlements and new immigrant towns. This fact, together with the winter peak of incidence, suggests a contact-respiratory form of spread.

3. Immigrants, regardless of country, showed particular susceptibility during their first year or two in Israel. In the long run there was no difference in attack rate between immigrants from Western and from Middle Eastern countries, in spite of the known endemicity of the disease in the Middle East. In communities such as those from Yemen and North Africa, with large families and with, on the whole, a lower economic status, the mean age at onset was significantly younger. Among the non-Jewish population, the incidence was lower than expected due partly to under-reporting and partly, perhaps, to a mild form of the disease in the very young.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Hygiene , Volume 59 , Issue 1 , March 1961 , pp. 123 - 132
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1961

References

REFERENCES

Army Medical Department (1893). Statistical Reports on the Sickness, Mortality and Invaliding among the Troops in the United Kingdom, The Mediterranean and British America. London: H.M.S.O.Google Scholar
Btesh, S. (1944). Infective hepatitis in Palestine. Trans. R. Soc. trop. Med. Hyg. 38, 35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cameron, J. D. S. (1943). Infective hepatitis. Quart. J. Med. 12 (N.S.), 139.Google Scholar
Davies, A. M. (1959). Control of communicable diseases in Grushka, T. (editor), Health Services in Israel. Jerusalem: Ministry of Health.Google Scholar
Davies, A. M., Marberg, K., Goldblum, N., Levine, S. & Yekutiel, P. (1960). Epidemiology of poliomyolitis in Israel, 1952–59. Bull. World Hith Org. 23, 53.Google Scholar
Dixon, H. B. F. (1944). Notes on infective hepatitis in Malta, 1938–42. J. R. Army med. Corps, 82, 44.Google Scholar
Gauld, R. L. (1946). Epidemiological field studies of infectious hepatitis in the Mediterranean theater of operations. Parts I–VIII. Amer. J. Hyg. 43, 248.Google Scholar
Havens, W. P. Jr. (1944). Infectious hepatitis in the Middle East. A clinical review of 200 cases seen in a military hospital. J. Amer. med. Ass. 126, 17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hellmann, R. (1943). Truppenaerztliche Beobachtungen ueber die Hepatitis epidemica in der Lybischen Wueste. Dtsch. tropenmed. Z. 47, 354.Google Scholar
Ipsen, J., Donovan, W. R. & James, G. (1952). Sociologic factors in the spread of epidemic hepatitis in a rural school district. J. Hyg., Camb., 50, 457.Google Scholar
Jossem, J. (1940). On the problem of endemic jaundice (icterus endemicus). Harefuah, 19, 31.Google Scholar
Kligler, I. J., Btesh, S. & Koch, W. (1944). Observations on two epidemics of infective hepatitis in Palestine among recent immigrants. J. infect. Dis. 74, 234.Google Scholar
Kupat, Holim (1960). The Workers' Sick Fund and its Development. Report for the years 1956–1958. Tel-Aviv.Google Scholar
Leffkowitz, M. (1943). Infectious epidemic jaundice. Harefuah, 25, 24.Google Scholar
Olitzki, L., Bacchi, R. & Kallner, G. (1948). Infective hepatitis among civilians in Palestine. J. Hyg., Camb., 46, 101.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sherman, J. L. & Eichenwald, H. F. (1956). Viral hepatitis: descriptive epidemiology based on morbidity and mortality statistics. Ann. int. Med. 44, 1049.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Steinitz, H. (1959). The incidence of late liver and biliary tract damages after infectious hepatitis in Israel. Israel med. J. 18, 207.Google Scholar
Van Rooyen, C. E. & Gordon, I. (1943). Some experimental work on infective hepatitis in the M.E.F. J. R. Army med. Corps, 79, 213.Google Scholar
World Health Organization (1958). Annual Epidemiological and Vital Statistics, 1955. Geneva.Google Scholar