1e3% if appropriate treatment services were available.
The fatality rate gradually decreased after 1961, entered
a stationary state in 1968, and remained at 1% for the
next 8 years. The increasing availability of medical
services, especially improved access to pharmacies,
might have induced a greater decrease in the fatality rate
than the increasing water service coverage, although it
was impossible to correlate the actual use of antibiotics
with the fatality rate for typhoid fever. The 1% fatality
rate might have been the limit that could be attained
with the availability of medical services during the 8-
year period. During this period, 7674 pharmacies
serviced the community, and each pharmacy provided
medicines to an average of 4019 people. These data may
vary with the population and geography in each country.
However, these data suggest that there is a critical point
in the availability of medical services that must be
reached to decrease the fatality rate of typhoid fever.