disease Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Deer Test Positive For Chronic Wasting Disease In Harpers Ferry

Two deer tested positive for chronic wasting disease in Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, marking the disease’s first documented occurrence in the park.

Two white-tailed deer have tested positive for chronic wasting disease (CWD) in Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, marking the first time the disease was detected in a West Virginia national park.

CWD affects several deer, elk and moose species across North America, and is fatal to infected animals, with no known cure or treatment.

There have been no reported instances of CWD infecting humans, but the World Health Organization advises against the consumption of CWD-infected animals.

All venison from the deer infected with CWD was destroyed, according to a Tuesday press release from the National Park Service (NPS).

NPS said it detected the instances of CWD during ongoing efforts to reduce deer populations “to protect and restore native plants, promote healthy and diverse forests and preserve historic landscapes.”

Similar deer population reduction efforts are being conducted in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., according to NPS.

In March, three white-tailed deer tested positive for CWD in Maryland’s Antietam National Battlefield and Monocacy National Battlefield, located less than 20 and 25 miles away, respectively.

This also marked the disease’s first documented occurrence in either battlefield, according to NPS.

CWD can cause “drastic weight loss, stumbling, listlessness and other neurological symptoms, though it can take more than a year for these symptoms to present, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“The NPS will continue to participate in monitoring of collected deer for CWD and will destroy venison testing positive for CWD,” NPS said. “If you see sick or dead wildlife, avoid contact with the animal and notify a National Park Service employee as soon as possible.”

Disease Spread Prompts Deer Transport Restrictions

West Virginia officials have placed restrictions on the disposal and transport of deer carcasses in two more counties in response to a disease.

The state Division of Natural Resources says in a news release the restrictions start July 1 in Berkeley and Mineral counties. The restrictions are already in Hampshire, Hardy and Morgan counties.

The restrictions are designed to combat the spread of chronic wasting disease, which is concentrated in brains and spinal cords of infected deer. There are exceptions, including finished taxidermy mounts and meat that has been boned out.

The statement says the disease was found in two road-kill deer in Berkeley County and one sick deer in Mineral County.

The disease has been detected in nearly 350 deer since 2005, nearly all of them in Hampshire County.

Public Health Administrators Meet to Discuss 25 Percent Cut to Funding

The Executive Council for the West Virginia Association of Local Health Departments met Wednesday to discuss the effects of the proposed $4 million in funding cuts to local public health services for fiscal year 2017 as outlined in Governor Tomblin’s budget proposal to the legislature last week.

Council members fear this 25 percent reduction in funding will not only have huge consequences for daily operations, but also much more serious ones for the citizen who rely on public health services.

Michael Kilkenny, physician director at the Cabell-Huntington Health Department, said part of the responsibilities of local health departments is to monitor the general population for threats to public health.

“The proposed cuts would really cripple our surveillance efforts,” Kilkenny said. “We are mandated to watch for specific diseases and some of these diseases are a nuisance but some of these diseases are deadly. If we stop watching for those diseases, those diseases will spread, people will get sick and some of those people will die.”

Kilkenny believes these cut will end up costing the state money in the long run.

“I think everyone is well-aware that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” Kilkenny said. “If we stop watching, if we delay our response to any disease outbreak, we’re going to pay the price on the other side by treating more people.”

Wednesday’s meeting brought health administrators and practitioners from around the region to discuss a contingency plan if the cuts are sustained.

Many voiced concerns that there is a misconception about what public health services do. These services are not individual-based services, but services designed to protect and promote the health of a community as a whole, such as managing an infectious disease outbreak, which Monongalia County’s Executive Health Director, Lee Smith, said are on the rise in West Virginia.

“Sexually transmitted infections are certainly on the up-tick in West Virginia, and some are related and co-infected with HIV,” Smith said. “Ebola, MERS, Dengue, Chicken Gunya, and now Zika are all part of our vocabulary. All of these are diseases that we have to deal with and you don’t get these services anywhere else. They are not at the hospital. They’re going to treat the active patient, but no one is going to surveillance, no one is going to do the monitoring other than public health.”

While many county administrators are pleading with Governor Tomblin to prevent the cuts, ultimately it is state lawmakers that will decide whether to follow through with his proposal.

One member of the Legislature, Republican Senator Chris Walters, is proposing a bill that will help the state pay for local health department services. His proposal calls for a reduction in the number of county health department administrators to save the state money and help continue to pay for the much needed services.

“The bill is a regionalization bill,” Walters said. “It does not regionalize the health departments, per se, it leaves the departments in their localities. It regionalizes the administration. Currently we have 49 administers for health departments across the state. I feel that if we did a regionalization of the administrators, we could start pulling these resources together have these departments start billing insurance. Currently, they’re just living off line-item tax-payer dollars and not actually billing the insurance companies, where they’d be able to bring in money as well.”

This bill also has another provision that create needle exchanges at rural health departments across the state.

Walters says he expects the bill to be introduced to the Senate tomorrow.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from the Benedum Foundation.

Whooping Cough On The Rise in W.Va.

West Virginia health officials are reporting a spike in the disease commonly known as whooping cough.

According to the Charleston Gazette-Mail, the Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) reports 52 confirmed cases of pertussis in West Virginia so far this year. That’s up from 18 cases last year and 19 cases in 2013.

Symptoms include uncontrollable, violent coughing which often makes it hard to breathe. After fits of many coughs, someone with pertussis often needs to take deep breaths which result in a “whooping” sound. Pertussis can affect people of all ages, but can be very serious, even deadly, for babies less than a year old.

Dr. Rahul Gupta, the state health commissioner, says outbreaks of the contagious respiratory disease tend to occur in three- to five-year cycles. There were 168 cases in 2010.

The DHHR has sent an advisory to health-care providers across the state alerting them to look for symptoms of pertussis and coordinate with local health officials in testing for suspected cases.