Health of the Command

Rates and Trends

In Vietnam, as in Korea and in the Asiatic and Pacific theaters in World War II, the cumulative effect of disease was the greatest drain on the strength of the American combat and support effort. Disease admissions accounted for just over two of every three (69 percent) hospital admissions in Vietnam in the period 1965-69; battle injuries and wounds, in contrast, were, responsible for approximately one of six admissions during this period. (Table 1) But the average hospital stay and thus the time lost from duty resulting from combat injury was considerably longer than that resulting from disease. In 1970, however, as a result of the diminution of the American combat role, disease and nonbattle injury accounted for more than half the man-days lost to the, Army in that theater. (Table 2)

While indicative of the theater's single greatest cause of morbidity, disease rates for Vietnam revealed encouraging trends when compared to rates for previous conflicts. The average annual disease admission rate for Vietnam (351 per 1,000 per year) was approximately one-third of that for the China-Burma-India and Southwest Pacific theaters in World War II (844 per 1,000 per year and 890 per 1,000 per year, respectively), and more than 40 percent less than the rate for the Korean War (611 per 1,000 per year). (See Table 1.) *

One of the most striking achievements of military medicine in Vietnam, was the rapid and effective establishment of a preventive medicine program that blunted the impact of disease on combat operations, In World War II, preventive medicine programs in the Far East did not begin to make inroads upon disease incidence until 1945, a year of transition from war to peace. In Korea the delay was less, but still considerable. In Vietnam, however, effective disease control programs were introduced in 1965, and these were successfully maintained throughout the stress of the troop buildup, (See Table 1.)