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Public Health offering Zika virus info at tire collection events in Canton, Louisville

Posted 4/29/16

By CRAIG FREILICH The St. Lawrence County Public Health Department will hand out information on the Zika virus for people at the free waste tire disposal events Saturday in Louisville and Canton …

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Public Health offering Zika virus info at tire collection events in Canton, Louisville

Posted

By CRAIG FREILICH

The St. Lawrence County Public Health Department will hand out information on the Zika virus for people at the free waste tire disposal events Saturday in Louisville and Canton sponsored by state Sen. Patty Ritchie, R-Heuvelton.

Public Health Director James Rich said members of his department would be distributing pamphlets there with information on the Zika virus to interested members of the public.

“Waste tires aren’t just unsightly, they also have the potential to attract disease-carrying mosquitoes that can pose very serious threats to public health,” said Sen. Ritchie.

Among those diseases is the Zika virus, made prominent in the news this year by outbreaks in Brazil and elsewhere. Zika virus has been associated with microcephaly and potentially other birth defects, according to information from the county department of public health. In particular, reports in Brazil and other countries of microcephaly in infants of mothers who were infected with Zika virus while pregnant, and developing research, appear to support an association between Zika and microcephaly.

A primary public health objective is to reduce the risk to developing fetuses of pregnant women in New York State and St. Lawrence County, according to Director Rich. “As such, during the spring, summer and fall, it is important that NYSDOH and St. Lawrence County Public Health Department take action to protect all people from the Zika virus,” material from the county department says.

The St. Lawrence County Public Health Department’s Zika Action Plan centers on educating the public and medical providers as to what Zika is, how it is transmitted, how it is tested for and diagnosed, reduction of exposure risk, and educating the public on identifying mosquito breeding habitats and habitat reduction, such as removing breeding places such as pools of standing water in old tires.

“The good news is we’re up north,” Rich said, and the consensus of public health professionals is that the North Country is “not likely to see any of the mosquitoes that carry the disease” due to the colder climate here.

The tire disposal events Saturday, in Louisville at the Town Highway Garage, 14810 State Highway 37, and Canton at the Human Resource Building, 80 State Highway 310, will be open from 8 a.m. to noon. Each household will be permitted to dispose of up to eight tires free of charge, with the usual $15 fee being waived. Tires must be removed from rims and no tractor tires will be accepted.

There is more info on Zika and other items of interest at http://www.co.st-lawrence.ny.us/Departments/PublicHealth/.