Communicable Diseases

Program Introduction

The Infectious Disease Department of the Highland County Health Department monitors various infectious diseases in Highland County. Activities include receiving reports for over 70 reportable infectious diseases from hospitals, laboratories, and other health care providers.

The Infectious Disease Department looks at the communicability, transmission, and treatment of these diseases, in order to stop the further spread of these diseases within the community.

This department is also very involved in regional planning and reporting activities.

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RODS

In addition to monitoring communicable diseases, the Highland County Health Department has been a driving force in the establishment of a regional symptom tracking system called RODS (Real-Time Online Disease Surveillance).

RODS provides the HCHD an overall view of symptoms reported at hospitals across the region, which enables our epidemiologist and nurses to spot potential disease outbreaks earlier than was possible before.

Another interesting capability of RODS is the ability to track the sales rates of popular over the counter medicine, like Rolaids, Tylenol, Pepto-Bismol, anti-diarrhea medicine, and others. In the event of a wide spread disease outbreak, these medicines would likely be bought at higher rates than in normal times. By reviewing the data for sales, the health department can again spot potential outbreaks earlier, and respond more efficiently.

This system is useful in daily epidemiology work, but is particularly useful in monitoring for Large disease outbreaks. RODS provides timely data that can be used to assist in identifying an agent used in an biological terrorism attack, locating the source of an disease outbreak, and predicting spread patterns through the population