CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV) - A surge in syphilis cases across Charlotte and North Carolina is being fueled by a health staffing shortage and a failure to trace cases, according to a former county employee.
The former employee sat down with WBTV to blow the whistle on what she said is a growing problem jeopardizing residents’ health.
The whistleblower said Mecklenburg County and state health leaders aren’t doing enough to warn people about the spike in STD’s she said she warned them about.
Records obtained by WBTV show North Carolina syphilis cases in women have risen 538 percent while congenital syphilis, where a mother passes the disease to an unborn child, rose 4100 percent.
“I kept saying women are going to start getting it. Babies are going to start getting it and this is what we’re seeing now,” Kristi McCray told WBTV.
McCray has worked in public health for 40 years. The last eight years of her career were spent working on STD and HIV surveillance and case management for Mecklenburg County Public Health. She says she left because county and state health leaders weren’t doing enough to stop the rapid spread of the communicable disease.
One of McCray’s job titles was Disease Intervention Specialist. The role of a DIS employee is to help connect positive patients with available health resources and track down other people who might have been exposed in order...
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