A new piece of legislation drafted by State Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr., D-Brownsville, calls for the creation of a border task force that would assist the state in addressing the region’s health issues.
A new piece of legislation drafted by State Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr., D-Brownsville, calls for the creation of a border task force that would assist the state in addressing the region’s health issues.
Senate Bill 1680 was written as a response to the Zika outbreak in Cameron County. It aims to improve communication between state and local health officials.
“This is an additional resource the state can use,” Lucio said Wednesday morning. “This is a wonderful step forward of additional health care services for not only the (Rio Grande) Valley but the whole state.”
Border health officials contend that because of their location, they have to handle public health risks differently than other areas.
That was one of the first lessons the Cameron County Department of Health and Human Services learned when the first case of Zika appeared, Health Administrator Esmeralda Guajardo said.
“When we first started (handling the virus), people said, ‘Let’s just do what Florida did.’ We quickly realized we couldn’t,” Guajardo explained to the committee.
In bigger cities such as Houston, isolating the exact time a traveler caught the virus is easier to do. In the Rio Grande Valley, where travel to Mexico is part of everyday life, it is not quite that simple, Guajardo said.
Here in the Valley, health officials need more information to go on. Why was the individual in Mexico? Was the individual outside? How long had they been there?
Complicating matters somewhat more is that residents generally have a lower socioeconomic status compared to elsewhere in the state.
“We have individuals whose socioeconomic status doesn’t allow them to get the health care that they need, so it can be very difficult to identify (where Zika is),” she said.
As of March 2017, 39 individuals in Cameron County have tested positive for Zika. Six of those cases were traced back to the local mosquito population, Guajardo said.
Charles Schwertner, the committee chairman, praised the bill, calling it “reasonable and important” legislation.
“The need for local health departments to have better coordination between health departments and the state is clearly evident,” Schwertner said, referencing Zika and the brief Ebola scare in Dallas. “A task force gets them in the same room … and allows for communication and potential enhanced coordinated efforts.”
The bill’s status is pending.
