“Local and state health officials have been appropriately notified, and guidelines established by those organizations are being closely followed,” Premier said in the statement. “While the confirmed and suspected cases are isolated to a single wing, preventative measures have been recommended to residents where appropriate. The Ohio Department of Health has informed us verbally that we are following all appropriate measures. All employees are being treated. Extensive cleaning/disinfecting procedures have been followed, and the entire building is being closely monitored to prevent additional cases.”
Premier is the second major health system in the Dayton area to be hit with scabies this year.
Kettering Health Network confirmed two separate scabies outbreaks earlier this week that infected more than 120 employees at Kettering Medical Center, 3535 Southern Blvd. in Kettering, and at Sycamore Medical Center, 4000 Miamisburg Centerville Road, west of the Dayton Mall.
All toll, the three outbreaks reported this week in the Dayton area represent about 19 percent of the 16 total outbreaks reported statewide last year, according to figures from the Ohio Department of Health.
The Kettering outbreaks, which were traced back to two individual patients at each hospital, involved a highly contagious form of scabies, known as crusted or Norwegian scabies. Premier officials said Koester Pavilion was also infested with Norwegian scabies, a condition in which those infected typically develop thick crusts of skin that contain large numbers of scabies mites.
Scabies is common in hospitals, nursing homes and extended-care facilities, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The condition is so common, in fact, that most individual cases of scabies are not required to be reported to local health departments, according to Dan Suffoletto, a spokesman for Public Health - Dayton & Montgomery County.
“People are going to have scabies randomly all the time,” Suffoletto said. “If one person has it and goes to the doctor, that’s not required to be reported; only if it’s a multi-case outbreak or linked to an outbreak.”
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