TALE OF A CITY 52 All local workers and English employees had been successfully vaccinated the year before. The only ones in direct contact with Imperial Airways passengers were the local workers, the porters, the room service and food quarters personnel, etc., and they all lived in the rest house. This table below sums up the cases of Smallpox recorded in Sharjah and the neighbouring areas: City Population No. of Cases Deaths last week in December Sharjah 3000 100 12 Dubaï 25000 500 60 Ras al-Khaimah 0 30 4 Umm al-Quwain 0 80 4 Ajman 0 15 7 Heera 0 30 2 The nearest city toSharjahwasDubai, only 15miles (27 km) on theHighway. In spite of the fact that its source was unknown, many factors contributed to the outbreak. For example, Smallpox was common in the Gulf of Oman, and it was rare not to find some cases of smallpox here and there; there were no prophylactic materials, at least in Sharjah, where sanitation was poor. Additionally, over-crowdedness was a common scene, and vaccination was not accurately conducted. The only two recommendations that the medical mission implemented in order to control the risk of infecting people coming to Sharjah Air Station were: 1. With the exception of employees whose nature of work dictated otherwise, all the employees in the rest house had to live in temporary sites nearby, and had to be prevented from going to the city of Sharjah or any other place where there was risk of infection; 2. In return, the Sharjah City inhabitants were not allowed to come
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