NORTH GEORGIA HEALTH DISTRICT

Healthy people, families, and communities.
  • NEWS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS

    NEWS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS

The One-Stop Spot for School Students' State Health Requirements.

Back to School Bash Pickens for WebPrepare your child for the upcoming school year! The Pickens County Health Department will conduct a Back-to-School Bash Health Clinic on Tuesday, July 18th from 1 to 6 p.m. The health department is located at 60 Health Way in Jasper. This is the One-Stop Spot for school students’ state health requirements. The clinic is offering required Hearing, Dental, Vision and BMI/Nutrition Screenings and providing Immunizations for school-age children. The clinic is accepting Medicaid (including AmeriGroup, PeachState and WellCare) and PeachCare for Kids. For more information or to check on additional insurances accepted, please call (706) 253-2821.

Hepatitis C Clinic Canton webCANTON (GA) - The Cherokee County Health Department is conducting a HEPATITIS C CLINIC on Tuesday, June 20th from 2 to 6 PM at their Canton location, 1219 Univeter Road. The clinic is offering FREE Rapid Hepatitis C Testing. Hepatitis C is 10 times more infectious that HIV and more than 75% of adults with Hepatitis C are Baby Boomers – people born between 1945 to 1965. Most people who are infected with Hepatitis C don’t know it; therefore, getting tested is key! For more information about the upcoming HEPATITIS C CLINIC in Canton, contact the Cherokee County Health Department at (770) 345-7371.

GET TESTED!

UP TO 5.3 MILLION PEOPLE IN THE U.S. ARE INFECTED WITH HEPATITIS AND MOST DON'T KNOW IT!

Read below about FREE Hepatitis C Testing in the North Georgia Health District

ABCs of Hepatitis NGHD1 2.jpg forWeb

FREE rapid Hepatitis C virus testing is available at health departments in Cherokee, Fannin, Gilmer, Murray, Pickens and Whitfield Counties. These tests can produce a preliminary result in 20 minutes by using a finger stick test.

Anyone who falls within one or more of the following categories is at higher risk for HCV and is urged to take advantage of this free rapid Hepatitis C testing:

  • Born between 1945 and 1965
  • Past or present injection drug use
  • Sharing of any drug equipment
  • HIV positive
  • Blood transfusions prior to 1992
  • Clotting factors prior to 1987
  • Sexual partner of someone who is Hepatitis C positive
  • Tattoo or body piercing in an unprofessional setting

Click on the above LOCATIONS tab to contact the nearest county health department within the North Georgia Health District nearest you. Learn more about hepatitis from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) at https://www.cdc.gov/hepatitis/resources/professionals/pdfs/abctable.pdf.

By Raymond King, District Director of Environmental Health 

Where did all these mosquitoes come from Cartoon x smFor mosquito control around your home, your time and money are usually best spent killing mosquito larvae on and around your property. Many homeowners only focus on killing adult mosquitoes and ignore the mosquito larvae, which are easier and less expensive to kill. By all means, kill adult mosquitoes but don’t forget about where they came from.

The mosquitoes biting you probably came from the larvae in standing water on your own property or a nearby neighbor’s property. The two species that can carry the Zika virus, the Asian tiger mosquito and the “Yellow Fever Mosquito” (Aedes aegypti), normally don’t go much farther than 600 to 1000 feet from where they hatched.

Whenever I investigate mosquito complaints, I usually find the mosquito larvae right there on the property of the complainant. On one such investigation, the complainant wanted the county to come spray for adult mosquitoes, which were extremely numerous. When I got to the home, the property owner had thirty or more 5-gallon buckets around her barn and house catching rainwater. There were hundreds of mosquito larvae in every bucket.

Most of the time, mosquito larvae are not as obvious as in 5-gallon buckets. We don’t think about places around our homes where even small amounts of water are breeding mosquitoes. The Asian tiger mosquito and the yellow fever mosquito need only a couple of ounces of water for their larvae. These two mosquito species are called “container-breeders” because they only lay their eggs in small amounts of water as you would find in cans, stopped-up gutters and very small pools of water. They do not lay eggs in large pools of standing water, although other mosquitoes will.