The Grand Traverse County Health Department will appear before the county board of commissioners tonight to request funding for an additional full-time nurse in the wake of multiple outbreaks that have strained the department's communicable disease resources.

Health officials note that due to "minimal staffing" in the communicable disease program, there is "no sustainable surge capacity for dealing with unusual outbreaks or multiple outbreaks in a short period of time." When outbreaks such as whooping cough or measles occur, staff must be pulled from other programs to handle the crisis, which "reduces the revenue for those programs and has an overall negative effect on budget and services."

There have already been 12 significant outbreaks in 2014 - defined as situations that have significant effects on staff time, such as foodborne illnesses, whooping cough, measles, tuberculosis and others - compared to 7 in 2013. Between November 1 and December 10 this year, 134 communicable diseases were reported to the Health Department - a 91 percent increase over last year's 70 cases in the same reporting period. Department officials note that Michigan mandates the county to perform infectious disease control and immunizations, so staffing has to be redistributed accordingly when outbreaks occur.

The Health Department reduced or cut maternal infant health program visits, school vision and hearing screenings, sexually transmitted disease clinics, Medicaid outreach activities and several other community health programs to handle the recent increase in volume in communicable disease cases. Officials stated they are concerned the trend will continue into the future, since the county's under-vaccination rate is "six times the national average" and population growth in the county continues to result in "steady increase of cases."