Current Infectious Disease Concerns

Cedar County Public Health Dealing with Infectious Diseases

These days, it's enough to make you want to walk around with a surgical mask and rubber gloves on. Cedar County Public Health is into infectious diseases in a way that it hasn't in it's history. Director Rick Fleshin stated "We" currently dealing with MRSA, Cryptosporidium, Salmonella, and the usual viruses and other bacteria."

Cryptosporidium

The state health department has issued repeated alerts about Cryptosporidium a protozoan infection that is passed along in recreational water like swimming pools and then by people handling food without proper hand washing. There have been 863 cases this year so far as opposed to 230 cases in 2006.

Here are the symptoms to look for: Diarrhea, abdominal cramps, loss of appetite, vomiting, and weight loss. Those symptoms can keep going almost constantly for 1 to 2 weeks. Fleshin says sometimes they'll start to go away and but recurrence is actually fairly common. There's actually no way to prevent it... just follow good hand washing hygiene and don't drink contaminated water. What is interesting is that alcohol or bleach based cleaning (hands or surfaces) is not effective and doesn't work. Hydrogen Peroxide (3%) is the only known readily available cleaning solution and should be used undiluted to effectively clean up after someone with cryptosporidium.

In March and April 1993, the largest US waterborne disease outbreak occurred in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, causing illness in more than 400,000 people. The etiological agent responsible was Cryptosporidium. Milwaukee was served by two water treatment plants which were contaminated by upstream meat processing facilities that used raw water from Lake Michigan.

MRSA

MRSA stands for Methicillin Resistant Staphlococcus Aureus which is to say it is a bacteria (called "staph") that is resistant to a extremely strong kind of Penicillin. MRSA has received a huge amount of media/press attention in the last weeks but the truth is it has been present in hospitals for decades. Mary Dorris, the Public Health Nurse who heads up infectious disease investigations, says that parents are calling school nurses, clinics, and the public health department wanting information on how to protect their children or themselves. She says it was one of the first germs to outwit all but the most powerful drugs. She is advising Cedar County schools regarding policies when a student who is an athlete gets diagnosed with MRSA. MRSA infection can be fatal. MRSA is spread by contact. So you could get MRSA by touching another person who has it on the skin. Or you could get it by touching objects that have the bacteria on them. Hospital and clinic infection rates are rising rapidly.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently calculated that MRSA is responsible for 94,000 serious infections and nearly 19,000 deaths per year in the United States. These numbers would make MRSA responsible for more deaths each year than AIDS.

How to prevent MRSA infection ? Four things: (1) keep your hands clean by washing thoroughly with soap and water or using an alcohol-based hand sanitizer, (2) keep cuts and scrapes clean and covered with a bandage until healed (3), Avoid contact with other people's wounds or bandages and (4) avoid sharing personal items such as towels and razors.

Salmonella

Salmonella is the bacteria that causes both typhoid and food poisoning. The disease is characterized by diarrhea, abdominal cramps, vomiting and nausea, and generally lasts up to 7 days.

There is a current recall of Banquet pot pies that are contaminated with Salmonella. At this time, CDC recommends that people do not eat any Banquet pot pies or pot pies made by ConAgra Foods that have a printed code ending in "P9". Other brands of pot pies made in the ConAgra Foods factory that makes Banquet brand pot pies and sold under other brand names may also be contaminated with Salmonella. These other pot pie boxes also have a printed code ending in "P9". If you have any of these products at home, the safest thing to do is to discard them.

Most persons infected with Salmonella develop diarrhea, fever, vomiting, and abdominal cramps 6 to 72 hours after infection. In most cases, the illness lasts 3 to 7 days—most affected persons recover without treatment. However, in some persons the diarrhea may be so severe that the patient becomes dangerously dehydrated and must be taken to a hospital. Cedar County has had people hospitalized in the last 2 weeks for this.

The best way of avoiding Salmonella infections is make sure that everything is thoroughly cooked. Other precautions include washing hands and surfaces often, washing hands, cutting boards, dishes etc with hot soapy water before handling food, separating raw meat, poultry, and seafood from other foods, cook to proper temperatures and refrigerating promptly.

Food Borne Illness

Cedar County Public Health recently investigated a food borne illness outbreak in which 18 out of 22 people attending a birthday party got violently ill with vomiting and diarrhea. After an extensive 2 week investigation into the sources of the food for the party, Dorris says that the only people who got ill were those at that party and that was a young 23 month old who was ill with diarrhea who somehow contaminated everyone at the party. Those hospitalized, unfortunately did not have culture and sensitivity tested so it is unknown what got everyone so sick. Everyone eventually recovered.

"Mystery Illness"

Several weeks ago, one of the school nurses in the county noticed an unusual number of students in elementary, middle and high school were out with fever, nausea, headache, and dizziness. Public Health began monitoring all 5 school systems for this unusual constellation of symptoms. In all five school systems, the school nurses began dutifully sending in daily reports of what the students were out with. Immediately, the picture at each school and countywide indicated no pattern or any indication of anything amiss. This has continued. Fleshin said "There is no indication of anything out of the ordinary we more than likely have a small fall surge (school has started) in upper respiratory infections as well as viral gastroenteritis bugs out there but nothing out of the ordinary or supremely dangerous line to all of these is basic hygienic practices: lots of good hand washing, proper food preparation, covering sneezes, proper rest, exercise, hydration and nutrition.

Mumps

We have one current case of known mumps in the county. Mumps is an infection of the salivary glands spread through respiratory secretions (saliva). Mumps spreads by sharing drinks, kissing, sneezing or coughing. Symptoms include swelling of the glands close to the jaw, fever, headache, and muscle ache. Although mumps is a mild disease, one in three young men may get painful, swollen testicles. Some of these men may end up with permanently shrunken testicles and in rare cases infertility. Women who develop mumps during their first trimester of pregnancy have a much higher risk of miscarriage. Mumps can also cause meningitis/encephalitis. Meningitis may lead to permanent damage of the brain and spinal cord and can rarely cause death.
Please see our "Mumps" page for more info and if you think someone in your family has mumps, please get tested.