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Maine CDC has located the person who dropped off a bat for rabies testing at the Maine CDC Health and Environmental Testing Lab (HETL) in May. There were no human exposures to the bat.
Rabies, if left untreated, is a fatal disease that is passed
to people and animals by the bite of an infected animal. In Maine, raccoons,
skunks, foxes and bats are most commonly infected with rabies.
Animals brought to HETL for rabies testing must be
accompanied by a completed submission form. The submission form is available at
the lab (entrance from the parking lot off of Columbia Street), but can also be
found online at http://go.usa.gov/39dPR.
The lab needs the submission form to be complete so that exposures
can be assessed, results can be reported and medical care received promptly.
Rabies is a medical urgency, not an emergency.
For More Information:
Call Maine CDC 24/7 at 1-800-821-5821. You
may also find information about rabies online at www.mainepublichealth.gov/rabies
or www.cdc.gov/rabies.
US CDC recently issued a health
alert about highly-pathogenic avian influenza A H5 viruses being identified in birds
in the US since December. The majority of these infections have occurred in
poultry, including backyard and commercial flocks.
Maine has no cases of avian flu in birds or humans. There are no human cases to date anywhere in
the US.
US CDC’s health alert is a reminder to providers and individuals of
the risk of avian influenza, to encourage testing, and to emphasize the
importance of biosecurity with both backyard and commercial poultry
flocks.
The health alert is available at http://emergency.cdc.gov/han/han00378.asp
Maine CDC is pleased to announce that Siiri Bennett, MD, has accepted the position of State epidemiologist.
Dr. Bennett received her medical degree from the University of Washington School of Medicine and completed her residency in internal medicine at Mt. Auburn Hospital in Massachusetts.
Dr. Bennett is currently a senior research scientist and medical data consultant in the Department of Biostatistics at the University of Washington in Seattle, where she is co-principal investigator for an NIH-funded Data Coordinating Center for a multi-study collaboration looking at tuberculosis latency and reactivation and also serves as a project director for a multi-study consortium looking at cardiovascular disease in patients with HIV.
She will begin her new role at Maine CDC on July 20.
Skin cancer is the most common form of cancer in the
US, and melanoma is the most deadly type of skin cancer. Rates of new melanomas have doubled over the last three decades. US CDC calculates that without additional prevention efforts, melanoma will continue to increase in the next 15 years.
More than 90 percent
of melanoma skin cancers are due to skin cell damage from ultraviolet (UV)
radiation exposure from sun or sources such as indoor tanning.
Melanoma can spread to other parts of the body and causes more than 9,000 deaths every year. People who die of melanoma lose an average of 20 years of life expectancy.
For more information, see this month's Vital Signs by US CDC at http://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/melanoma/index.html
Ticks are generally found in brushy or wooded areas, near the
ground; they cannot jump or fly. Ticks are attracted to a variety of host
factors, including body heat and carbon dioxide. They will transfer to a
potential host when one brushes directly against them and then seek a site for
attachment.
Ticks cause a variety of diseases in Maine, including Lyme
disease, anaplasmosis, babesiosis, ehrlichiosis, Powassan and Rocky Mountain
spotted fever, all of which are reportable in Maine.
More than 1,395 cases of Lyme disease were reported statewide in
2014, a record high for Maine. So far in 2015, there have been 110
reported cases of Lyme disease.
Other case counts for tickborne diseases reported in Maine so far
in 2015 include:
- 16 cases of anaplasmosis,
compared to 191 for all of 2014
- 1 case of babesiosis, compared
to 42 cases for all of 2014
For more information:
Cases of pertussis (whooping cough) continue to be reported statewide.
A total of 172 cases have been reported in Maine this year, as of June 9. The majority of the cases are in school-aged children.
Maine CDC encourages providers who see patients for cough in an outbreak area to test for pertussis and treat empirically. (Providers do not need to wait for positive
results to return or a two-week history of cough in order to treat.)
DTaP vaccine is recommended for all infants and children. Tdap vaccine is recommended for all preteens, teens and adults, including health care providers. Per ACOG (American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists), Tdap is also recommended for every pregnancy in
the third trimester.
For more guidance and information, visit http://go.usa.gov/dCO
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