Health director says county reporting needs work
By Phyllis Moore
Published in News on October 29, 2011 11:28 PM
As the number of cases of E. coli are on the rise, local health officials are keeping a close eye on the situation.
Health Director James Roosen said Friday morning that his office is unaware of any local cases.
But that might just be because of lax reporting.
In an e-mail sent to the News-Argus earlier in the week, Roosen said his staff is "attempting to let key people here in Wayne know about the E. coli outbreak in Raleigh."
"Our big problem here in Wayne is failure to report suspected illness to the health department. Some recent examples are the pink eye outbreak (this was viral) in a day care center, foodborne illness outbreak in a nursing home and a hep(atitis) B outbreak that occurred in a nursing home."
Officials at Wayne Memorial Hospital said Friday that they had handled one case.
"We had one that came through late Wednesday, came through the ER," said Georgia Dees, director of public relations. "And the patient, a child, was sent to Pitt (Memorial Hospital in Greenville)."