Results tagged “healthcommissionerdr”

The Health Department revealed that cases of the flu have increased 19% since November. Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Frieden said urged New Yorkers who haven't gotten a flu shot yet to do so.

Mayor Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn have announced a plan to issue 1,500 new permits to vendors who commit to selling fresh fruits and vegetables from carts in low-income neighborhoods. The “Green Cart” plan, expected to be approved by the City Council, comes on the heels of a Health Department study comparing Harlem to the Upper East Side; it determined that supermarkets in Harlem are 30% less common than the UES, and that only 3% of Harlem bodegas carry leafy green vegetables, compared to 20% on the UES. The UES also has better sushi, but that disparity remains unacknowledged in Bloomberg's plan.

As more cases of staph infections are being reported (a Newark public school security guard has MRSA, leading the school to be disinfected), parents are growing increasingly concerned about how schools are responding to the epidemic. Yesterday, school officials held a meeting at IS 211 in Brooklyn, the school Omar Rivera Jr. attended before dying from MRSA two weeks ago, to explain how it is dealing with the potentially deadly disease.

The Health Department released preliminary data that shows HIV infections increasing among gay men under age 30.

The Health Department announced that a 41-year-old Brooklyn woman had tested positive for the West Nile virus. This is the first reported case of West Nile in the city this year. The woman was hospitalized on August 25th, after suffering symptoms like fever, headache, fatigue, weakness and muscle pain.

As Grub Street and others reported yesterday, a letter written last Thursday by Senator Chuck Schumer to Department of Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Friedman may have prevented the forcible closure of the Red Hook Ball Field food vendors this past weekend. While this seems to be a small victory for the food purveyors, doubt remains whether the operating season for the newly food safety-certified vendors will end just after Labor Day, or at the end of October, the date observed by the vendors for the last few decades.

Better make sure you've got your insect repellent ready: The Department of Health has found mosquitoes with West Nile virus in Flushing.