Tagged: community health

Officials say there are at least eight confirmed cases of meningitis in Michigan, including two deaths.

The Michigan Department of Community Health said Saturday it won't be able to release any details about the deaths until after the weekend.

The meningitis outbreak has been linked to a steroid produced by a specialty pharmacy in Massachusetts. The steroid has been recalled, and officials have been scrambling to notify anyone who may have been injected with it.

Heroin abuse is increasing in Michigan and so is the number of fatal overdoses.

Felix Sharpe of Michigan's Bureau of Substance Abuse and Addiction Services says that 680 people died from heroin overdoses in Michigan last year.

Many abusers of prescription painkillers have moved to heroin because of its price. Drugs like Oxycontin sell for up to $40 dollars a pill on the street, while heroin sells for about $10.

Sharpe says that many of the victims are young people whose first contact with opiates came through painkillers prescribed to parents and grandparents. He says parents need to lock up prescriptions or dispose of them if they're no longer being used.

According to The Michigan Department of Community Health Bureau of Substance Abuse and Addiction Services' 2011 annual report,  the number of people receiving treatment for heroin abuse in the state jumped from 7,857 in 2001 to 10,924 last year.

Pregnant women and new mothers in Michigan can now get free text message tips on raising healthy babies. The state Department of Community Health has partnered with a national program called "Text-4-Baby," which sends tips on infant health to people’s cell phones.

Angela Minicuci is with the department. She said the texts provide a lot of information.

“Critical information for birth defects, for immunization, nutrition, seasonal flu information, mental health, oral health, safe sleep tips, different things that women may need to know, both during their pregnancy and once the baby is born to make sure that both themselves and the child will be healthy,” said Minicuci.

Minicuci also said that giving advice via text makes sense.

“Research has shown that 85 percent of Americans own a cell phone, and 72 percent of users offer text messaging,” said Minicuci “So that’s a very good number, a very large portion of the population, and text4baby is going to help, I think, address that population that we need to reach.”

Minicuci said the goal of the text-message system is to help reduce infant mortality rates. Michigan’s infant mortality rate is 7.7 deaths per 1,000 live births. That’s above the national average. 

The search for signs of West Nile Virus is once again taking place in Michigan.  Symptoms of the mosquito-borne illness include fever, headache, tiredness, and body aches.    August and September is the prime time for the virus.  

West Nile Virus first appeared in Michigan in 2002 and the number of human cases peaked a few years later.  Kim Signs is an epidemiologist with the state Department of Community Health.