County health director praises outbreak response; WIC clinic to offer farmers-market prescriptions

Buncombe County’s director reported the county is past the 42-day window since the last infectious day of its recent measles cluster and praised communicable-disease nurses and incident-response staff for their work controlling the outbreak.

"We averaged about a 100 phone calls related to each case," the director said, noting seven cases required sustained contact-tracing work and estimating roughly 700 phone calls to reach and advise potentially exposed individuals. The director singled out public health nurses and communicable-disease staff for the time-intensive work of identifying exposures, assessing immunization status and arranging quarantine or vaccination as appropriate.

The director also reported that the county’s WIC clinic received a grant that will allow staff to issue prescriptions for use at farmers markets so WIC clients can obtain fresh fruits and vegetables. The director said he would provide the grant’s source in the meeting minutes.

Finally, he recognized March as Social Work Appreciation Month and thanked the county’s social-work teams for their work on behalf of families. No additional board action was taken on the outbreak or the WIC grant during the meeting.