A Virus is Born
The CDC confirmed the birth of a new influenza virus in this week’s MMWR Weekly Report. The newborn is named “Swine-origin Triple Reassortant Influenza A (H3N2) (S-OtrH3N2)”. The hybrid virus was found in a handful of school-age kids in Iowa recently- and luckily the kids recovered and none were hospitalized. Nobody outside the initial cluster has been infected (a good thing) meaning it [...]
Arizona Health Disparities Connection & Maternal and Child Health Newsletters
Check out the latest issue of AHDConnection – Arizona’s Leading Health Disparities Resource on our Minority Health webpage and our brand new Maternal & Child Health Newsletter. Both have great info.
HIV Becomes a Chronic Disease
Chronic disease often calls up bad images for people because it means living with the disease for a long time. But… there was a time when cancer wasn’t chronic disease because people got sick and died pretty quickly. The same goes for HIV. When it was first discovered in the early 80s people quickly transitioned to AIDS and died shortly [...]
Integration Licensing Forums
Earlier this year the Governor signed HB 2634 which directs us to develop new rules for licensing places that can provide both behavioral and physical health services. We’re excited about this rulemaking because it supports our efforts to establish coordination and collaboration between all behavioral health and physical health providers. We’ve developed a preliminary plan to facilitate the integration of [...]
The Health Care/Public Health Continuum
In the world of health care- the clinician works with patients individually. They examine various indicators of health for their patient including direct observations and laboratory or other diagnostic tests and implement interventions to help their patient improve their health. Providers also encourage their patients to live healthy lifestyles and take safety precautions- and help patients with preventative care by [...]
RSV Ramping Up in AZ
Respiratory syncytial virus (or RSV) is a respiratory virus that mainly affects little kids- and circulates around this time of year. There’s no vaccine- but clinicians can give a preventive antibody treatment to folks at greatest risk (e.g. premature infants). It spreads mostly in the winter (like influenza) but flu and RSV don’t usually peak at the same time. Influenza activity [...]