Trends in four major communicable diseases.

The official notifications of the Department of Health pertaining to typhoid fever, tuberculosis, poliomyelitis and malaria are reviewed. Major findings of the epidemiological analysis of the data include the need for establishing the exact mode of transmission of typhoid, the need for assessing upper and lower limits of the expected case load in respect of tuberculosis over the next 5--10 years, the demonstration of the dramatic decline in the number of cases of poliomyelitis and the equally dramatic upsurge of malaria in 1977 and 1978. The need for an integrated, responsive and fully co-ordinated epidemiological service for the Republic of South Africa is emphasized.