Zambia Philately: 1970 Preventive Medicine

Preventive medicine aims to prevent sickness before it happens. The ideology behind preventive medicine focuses on protecting, promoting, and maintaining health and well-being. It also aims to avert disease, disability, and death on an individual basis, as well as on a large scale in communities and populations.

During the 1950s, David Morely, working at a Mission hospital in Nigeria, showed that the mortality rate of under the age of five children was normally 500 per 1000 but could be reduced to 180 per 1000. He implemented Under 5 (U5) clinics where he would help mothers chart child weight, provide immunisation, and provided simple curative measures. The success of the clinics was repeated in other countries.

Free U5 clinics were established in Zambia by missionaries. However, Government clinics were opened in dispensaries some miles from the city by Dr Tinika Boelens. Volunteers from the Organisation of Netherlands Volunteers played a major part in expanding the clinics and enrolled nurses in training, often also assisted. By 1971, Zambia’s U5 clinics numbered 570.

Details
  • Date of Issue: 4 July 1970*
  • Date Withdrawn: 3 October 1970
  • Date Invalidated:
  • Designer: Victor Whiteley (based on designs by Professor King)
  • Printer: Bradbury Wilkinson & Co Ltd
  • Process: Lithography
  • Paper: 
  • Watermark: None
  • Perf: 13.5 x 12 (comb)
  • Cylinders: Printed in panes of two and divided by a vertical gutter.
    • 1 1 1 1 : 1a 1a 1a 1a (3n) [left : right]
    • 1b 1b 1b 1b : 1c 1c 1c 1c (3n) [left : right]
    • 1c 1c 1c : 1b 1b 1b (15n)
    • 1a 1 a 1a : 1 1 2 (15n)
    • 1a 1a 1a : 1 1 1 (25n) [left : right]
    • 1c 1c 1c : 1b 1b 1b (25n) [left : right]
  • Sheet: R5 x 5 (25 stamps)
  • Quantity:

The issue was reported to have been placed on sale at the Pemba post office on the morning of 3 July 1970 and withdrawn a few hours later.

Subjects
References
  • Clinics for under Fives in Zambia and Malawi. Tropical Doctor. 1971 – Maurice King