Cherokee Man Treated For Rabies Exposure

The man is being treated after he was bitten by a stray cat earlier this month.

  A Cherokee County man is being treated for rabies exposure after he was attacked by a stray cat, officials with the North Georgia Health District said Thursday evening. According to a press release, the man was attacked on Dec. 1 after responding to sounds of cats fighting outside his home near the intersection of Highway 140/Hickory Flat Highway and Creek Hollow Drive in southeast Cherokee County. A gray and white cat he fed often was outside his home and started rubbing against the man's legs. The cat suddenly became aggressive and bit him. The cat ran away, but when it returned to the property, the man shot the cat.  The incident was reported to the Cherokee County Environmental Health Department on Dec. 6 and the cat's body was …

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Cherokee Residents Participate in Shopping Matters Tour

The Initiative helps residents make smart food choices at the grocery store.

Nine residents were treated with a free Shopping Matters grocery tour while learning how to make healthy food choices with limited resources. The Shopping Matters tour was sponsored by North Georgia WIC and was held at the Kroger on Marietta Highway in Canton. Led by Josefina Arvizu-Villela, a WIC nutritionist based in the Cherokee County Health Department who was recently trained as a Shopping Matters tour facilitator, the program is designed to empower residents with knowledge they need to shop and prepare healthy meals for their families. "Often, people don't know how to buy nutritious, yet affordable food for their family because they don't understand which foods are best, nor do they know how to make sense of the labels," Arvizu-…

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Cherokee Health Department Helps Families on Food Budget

Shopping Matters will help residents make healthy, affordable food choices at the grocery store.

The North Georgia Health District has brought a nationwide program to help families make decisions to purchase affordable, nutritious food to Cherokee County. Shopping Matters will teach registered shoppers how they can purchase healthy food on a budge. Sponsored by the North Georgia Women, Infants and Children (WIC) initiative, the program takes participants on a free grocery store tour by a train facilitator and "will empower them with knowledge about how to shop for and prepare healthy meals," according to a press release. Participatns will then be given a book that includes information provided during the tour and tasty, easy recipes for meals to make for their families. Two dates have been scheduled in Cherokee: Shopping Matters is a …

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Rabid Cat Scratches Woman in Canton

The incident occurred Sept. 2 at the Cherokee South Apartments off Marietta Highway.

A cat that scratched a woman at a Canton apartment complex has tested positive for rabies, and health officials are searching for others who might have come into contact with it. The stray cat, described as a black and white shorthaired female, "aggressively" scratched the woman at the Cherokee South Apartments off Marietta Highway in Canton on Sept. 2, Jennifer King, the spokeswoman for the North Georgia Health District, said. "The cat was immediately trapped and later died in its cage on Sept. 4," she said. "Cherokee County Environmental Health officials sent its remains to the state lab for rabies testing and the positive results were reported on Sept. 6." Since then, health officials have blanketed the area around the apartment complex…

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Negative Results for Additional Kittens

After a kitten tested positive for rabies, officials tested more cats and kittens in the area.

Lab results are back for the additional kittens tested for rabies. "We just got them this afternoon," Ray King, district director of environmental health for the North Georgia Health District. "They were negative."  The rabid kitten that lingered around the Riverstone Parkway Starbucks was just one in a colony of feral cats living in the woods of Canton, health officials now say. Since Cherokee County Environmental Health authorities announced on March 8 that the gray-striped kitten with medium-length fur tested positive for rabies, at least four more cats have been tested, according to a report on WSB-TV. Another remains in quarantine.  It's not clear when the lab results will come back. Attempts to reach North Georgia Health District …

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Kitten Tests Positive for Rabies

"A variety of people in Cherokee County" came into contact with the gray-striped kitten prior to its death, North Georgia Health District spokeswoman Jennifer King said.

Call your local environmental health office or medical care provider if you came into contact with a stray kitten at the Riverstone Parkway Starbucks between Feb. 22 and March 1. Today, Cherokee County Environmental Health officials announced that the gray-striped kitten with medium-length fur tested positive for rabies. "A variety of people in Cherokee County" handled the kitten prior to its death, North Georgia Health District spokeswoman Jennifer King said. A young woman who works at a Canton veterinary office picked it up on March 1 at the Riverstone Starbucks, where it had been touched by an unspecified number of people. The woman took the kitten to her Canton home and several more people were exposed to it, King said. Last Friday, …

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Canton-Sixes Goes to Work

Job of the Day: Professional Health Care Worker

The position pays up to $64,625.60 a year.

More people leave Cherokee for work than any other county in metro Atlanta. Do you want to work closer to home? The North Georgia Health District needs a professional health care worker to direct and coordinate the Cherokee County Health Department's WIC nutrition program. Candidates must have a bachelor’s degree in nutrition and dietetics or completed work in an equivalent American Dietetic Association-approved program. For more information, go here.

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11 Georgians Exposed to Rabid Cherokee Dog

The dog belonged to a family living near the intersection of Union Hill and East Cherokee roads.

Eleven Georgians – seven from Cherokee County, three from Pickens County and one from Houston County – were exposed to an unvaccinated dog that later tested positive for rabies. "The dog had become ill with the rabies virus, exposing everyone who came into contact with it, including five family members and six others who had visited the home," said Jennifer King, spokeswoman for the North Georgia Health District in Dalton. "It is not known how or where the dog came into contact with rabies." The dog belonged to a family living near the intersection of Union Hill and East Cherokee roads. It died June 24. Prior to the dog's death, it bit its two adult owners and a pig. The dog's body was taken to the Cherokee Emergency Veterinarian Clinic. …

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