Kanawha-Charleston Health Department staff pitched in on recovery efforts following the flooding that devastated parts of West Virginia late last month, and will continue to work with communities still struggling with the devastation.
The health department helped man the pop-up health clinic in Clendenin, administering tetanus vaccinations and providing other support services, and employees of the department helped run an emergency operations center set up to aid flood survivors, as well as a shelter established in Capital High School, Kanawha County health officer Dr. Michael Brumage told board members during a regular meeting on Thursday.
"We had a very robust response to flooding here," Brumage said. "Our sanitarians, of course, will be doing the yeoman's work, the heavy lifting that will be going on for months looking at septic systems and wells."
Brumage said the flood was the largest disaster anyone working at the health department has ever responded to, and that the agency plans to hold an "after-action review" on Aug. 11 with several other agencies to evaluate the county's response.
"This was the first time a field clinic had to be set up in Kanawha County," he said. "Coordinating the clinical aspect of this is something that was executed well, but I think we can improve on the speed and the comprehensiveness of services we were able to provide."
The health department has balanced its budget for the next fiscal year, after electing not to hire for four of its full-time staff positions that have been vacated. The agency will look toward other revenue sources to combat budget cuts, including a food handler card requirement that still is out for public comment, said Lolita Kirk, health department administrator. The agency also will likely need to raise its rates for other services it provides, she said.
"We haven't done it in five years, and we'd be raising them to be in line with those of the other larger health departments in the state," she said. "We've been looking at what they're doing, and we're adjusting ours to help cover the costs of our programs."
One program relatively new to the health department is its initiative to trap and test mosquitoes in the county. Stan Mills, the KCHD's director of environmental health services, said the agency will be performing testing in more areas than the state has been able to test in years past, and will test for multiple diseases, including La Crosse encephalitis, West Nile virus and even Zika virus, although he said the potential for Zika is incredibly unlikely.
Earlier this week, the West Virginia Bureau for Public Health confirmed the state's first case of Zika virus in a pregnant woman, bringing the total number of West Virginians who have contracted the mosquito-borne illness up to eight. Despite one case in Florida where public health officials suspect local mosquitoes may have contributed to an illness, there has been no real indication that mosquitoes anywhere in the U.S. carry the virus.
"There's a lot of talk about Zika, and it's intriguing, but the real problem we have now is with things like neonatal abstinence syndrome, mothers with uncontrolled diabetes and smoking when it comes to birth defects," Brumage said.
Brumage also noted that none of the 13 cases of Zika reported in West Virginia since January are from Kanawha County.
Reach Lydia Nuzum at lydia.nuzum@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-5189 or follow @lydianuzum on Twitter.