You may not know it, but whenever diseases strike in Franklin County, we have group of super sleuths that investigate, track and limit their spread…
And those folks are members of our Infectious Disease (ID) team! We sat down with Infectious Disease Team Epidemiologist and Supervisor Radhika Iyer to talk about their work at the health department!
Q: What does the ID team do?
A: Our team follows up on all diseases that are reportable in Ohio like E. coli, salmonella, measles, and pertussis. We follow up with a phone call to our cases to answer questions they might have and make sure they have all the information they need. We ask them questions about their possible exposures including food history travel history, and other diseases specific questions. We ask the same questions to all of our cases that have Pertussis or another illness to look for similar exposures that might point to a potential outbreak.
If there is a possible outbreak, we also investigate these by involving other staff from our agency as necessary. Some examples of this would be to loop in our food safety, pool safety or water quality teams. Additionally we work with local hospitals, school nurses, long term care facilities and childcare providers when an outbreak is affecting them. We provide them guidance on how to limit the spread of illness through interventions specific to the disease causing the outbreak.
Q: What’s a function that ID does that may surprise folks?
A: One interesting thing that we do is follow up stool testing. Certain cases require follow up testing on stool to make sure a person is clear of infection before they return to work in food handling, childcare or patient care. Children are also kept home from daycare for certain diseases and must clear before they can’t return. We coordinate stool testing with our cases and provide stool collection kits to them. Once completed, the stool specimens are sent to Ohio Department of Health Laboratory for testing to determine if the illness is still present.
Q: What, in your opinion, makes ID so important in the world of public health?
A: ID is important in the world of public health because we try to keep people healthy at the population level. By completing our investigations with our cases and responding to outbreaks, we can stop or help limit an outbreak from spreading to others. Doing so is a two way street and requires cooperation from the public and our cases in following the guidance and requirements that we put out. If that is not done, diseases will continue to spread. So if anyone catches anything, please contact us! We’d love to hear from you!
Also, identifying outbreaks quickly allows for faster interventions to help stop the spread of diseases. We are also always preparing behind the scenes for emerging infectious diseases such as Ebola, Influenza H5N1 and measles to make sure plans and protocols are in place to help limit the spread of illness should we see a case in our jurisdiction.
Q: If you haven’t yet, tell the public about IDRS! What’s that site for in your words?
A: IDRS stands for infectious disease reporting system. It’s a combined and centralized reporting system for Columbus and Franklin county for reportable diseases via a single phone, fax, email and mail. It allows of ease of reporting to one place instead of figuring out which public health to report between Columbus City and Franklin County.
We have a dedicated website www.idrsinfo.org, which is a great resource for disease reporters and general public. We have detailed guidance on how to report a disease and then disease factsheets that provide education on all reportable conditions. The data tab on our idrsinfo.org website has great data on our seasonal influenza surveillance and annual summaries that we publish each year. Additionally, any alert or advisory on a current outbreak or emerging infectious disease are posted on the site.
Q: Do you have any other info or interesting ID facts you’d like people to know?
A: We’re a very tight-knit team here in ID! We’ve worked together a long time and have a lot of experience in our field!