San Juan Basin Health Department is home to the Southwest Regional Epidemiologist whose role is to cover the Southwest region for infectious disease. Epidemiologists try to understand where the disease came from and if any other people are at risk of contracting the disease; then attempt to interrupt the cyle through various means ranging from removing a food product from supermarket shelves to putting people on medications or isolating them until they are no longer infectious. An additional key role is to raise public awareness of signs and symptoms as well as precautions individuals can take to protect themselves.
Therefore, the Regional Epidemiologist and San Juan Basin Health Department are involved in Emergency Preparedness coordination for our community. Many of the potential community-wide emergencies that we need to prepare for are communicable diseases such as Avian Flu or the next pandemic flu (such as the 1918 “Spanish Flu”).
Learn more about our Emergency Preparedness program and role in the community.
To avoid many of our most common communicable diseases such as flu, the single most effective step people can take is proper hand-washing.
To learn more about some of the more common communicable/infectious diseases we have in the Southwest, see below:
- Food-borne illness
To report a food-borne illness contracted in Southwest Colorado, click here. - Hantivirus
- Pertussis (Whooping Cough)
- Plague
- Rabies
- Ticks
- West Nile Virus
- For info on other infectious diseases and conditions
Services available:
HIV/AIDS