HILLSBOROUGH – Your local Orange County health department has been recognized by the NC Division of Public Health/Communicable Disease Branch for “Best Practice in an Outbreak Response Associated with the Spring 2013 Measles Outbreak.”

Community health services supervisor at the Orange County health department, Judy Butler, says the county’s effective response was rooted in its quick action after cases were discovered.

“It’s not something that you can let lie on your desk for a couple of days and then start working on it,” Butler says.

During the spread, 25 quarantine and isolation orders were given by the county, and eight cases of measles infection were confirmed.

“This is the largest number of quarantine and isolation orders we’ve had to issue in quite some time,” Butler says. “One reason for that is that measles is highly infectious.”

All of the measles cases in this incident were traced back to exposure in Stokes County.