We’ve all had those times when our stomach doesn’t feel just right, often after eating. And often, that stomachache is no more than minor discomfort that lasts just a short time. Even though the American food supply is among the safest in the world, an estimated 128,000 people each year require a hospital stay because [...]
April 23 through 29 is National Laboratory Professionals Week, a time for us to take a moment to thank our hard-working laboratory staff. This week we will celebrate the vital contributions laboratory professionals make to protect public health and safety . Our Public Health Laboratory is a leader in Arizona and the United States. For [...]
Our disease detectives at the state and counties are at it again, investigating an outbreak of E. coli O157 . We are working with Arizona’s counties, other states, CDC, and regulatory agencies to determine the source of the outbreak. E. coli O157 is a strain that causes diarrhea, often bloody, along with abdominal cramps, headache, [...]
Public health is always hard at work identifying and solving outbreaks. In the case of foodborne diseases, public health epidemiologists, nurses, and lab scientists are teaming up at local, state and federal levels to find out what food made people sick. When two or more people with the same foodborne disease get sick from the [...]
Public health officials regularly explore new and creative ways to promote health and wellness for Arizonans. On Saturday November 5, our staff and Maricopa County Department of Public Health (MCDPH) join in a new partnership with the Phoenix Zoo to host a free flu vaccine clinic accompanied with outreach on disease prevention. Last year’s flu [...]
Is it really true? Could cookie dough make us sick? If you’ve been watching or reading the news lately, you may have heard about a new outbreak that is linked to dough made with contaminated flour. What is unusual about this outbreak is that the source was not from the usual suspect, raw egg, but [...]
This is the time of year when we start closing out all of our infectious disease data from the previous year. That means our epidemiology and data entry staff will be hard at work to identify potential duplicate cases, make sure reported disease cases are classified correctly and similarly between the state and local health [...]
Earlier this week, Taylor Farms Pacific, Inc. recalled celery-containing products due to a possible E. coli risk. Some of these products, including celery sticks, diced celery, and pre-made salads containing celery were sold in Arizona at Costco, Safeway, Albertsons, Sam’s Club, and Walmart. At this time, no one in Arizona has gotten sick from E. [...]
A new report published by our Office of Infectious Disease Services examines the epidemiology of selected infectious diseases in recent years. The report contains an overview of Arizona's surveillance system, graphs and maps on more than 25 different reportable conditions and links to other ADHS tables and reports for 2008-2013. Among many other topics, the [...]
This week’s Vital Signs report shows that antibiotics are being overpowered by lethal germs called carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae or (CRE).These germs cause lethal infections in patients that get inpatient medical care in hospitals, long-term care facilities and nursing homes. In their normal forms, the germs- in the Enterobacteriaceae family (e.g. E. coli) are a normal part of our digestive system. However, some of them have [...]
