Iowa’s 4th annual Healthiest State Walk will be held next week as part of Iowa’s effort to become the healthiest state in the nation. Iowa Lottery C-E-O Terry Rich is serving as the chairman for this year’s event and says they’re aiming for a goal of 500-thousand walkers to walk one kilometer on Wednesday, October 8th.  “We’re encouraging everyone around the state of Iowa to grab a friend, grab your family, join a walk and walk 1K,” Rich says. “That’s really a pretty easy deal. It’s 15 minutes of walking that day.”

He says there are dozens and dozens of walks organized across the state in every one of the 99 counties. “We called the National Guard out and they’re mobilizing all the troops in all of the 52 armories across the state to lead walks,” Rich says. “The governor will lead a walk that day. A lot of the state reps from around the area will be leading, a lot of politicians are having their supporters walk. Schools around the state are going to have all of their students walk that day as part of National Walk to School Day.”

Nearly 900-thousand Iowans have participated in the Healthiest State Initiative’s walks in 2011, 2012 and 2013. This year’s goal is 500-thousand walkers, which would make it the largest statewide walk to date. “If you want to join a walk, just go to IowaHealthiestState.com and join one, start one, get your family out,” Rich says. “Register that you’ve walked and how many people walked so we can reach that 500,000 mark.”

Many organized walks will be held at noon on Wednesday, but walks are encouraged throughout the day. In order for walks to be counted, registration is required. According to the 2013 poll, the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, Iowa is 10th in the nation when it comes to being physically, emotionally and mentally healthy.

(Radio Iowa)

AMES, Iowa (AP) – A consultant says Iowa’s three public universities could save tens of millions of dollars in the coming years and eliminate up to 250 jobs by restructuring their administration. Recommendations released Thursday by Deloitte Consulting LLP call for changing or eliminating many individual departments’ human resources, information technology and finance positions. Instead, many of their functions would be handled at a college or university-wide level by more centralized teams.

Deloitte says the jobs would be cut over two years through attrition and perhaps an early retirement initiative. It cautioned the figures were broad estimates. The Iowa Board of Regents is meeting in Ames to discuss the proposals. Regents plan to gather feedback next week at town hall meetings on the university campuses before potentially taking action on the plans next month.

Officials in the Iowa Department of Public Health say it’s “understandable” that Iowans may find the recent news about an Ebola patient in Texas “scary,” but Dr. Ann Garvey, the assistant medical director for the agency, says the U.S. has health care systems in place to handle such cases. “Ebola is only spread if an infected person is actively having symptoms and it’s spread through direct contact with bodily fluids,” Garvey says. “Ebola is not spread through the air.”

Garvey says public health officials are ready to respond if an Ebola case is identified in Iowa. “Hospitals have been preparing for diseases like Ebola for a very long time. They have procedures in place,” Garvey says. “There is a significant amount of guidance that the CDC has put out recently related to Ebola specifically and that addresses all the procedures and steps that health care providers should keep in mind, many of which they’re already doing on a daily basis for other diseases that are infectious in nature.”

The president of Sierra Leone and the ministers of agriculture in Liberia and Sierra Leone are due to visit Des Moines in mid-October for World Food Prize festivities. Dr. Garvey says there’s no reason for concern. “Again, to get Ebola you have to have direct contact with bodily fluids from someone who is ill and actively having systems. Again, it’s not an airborne disease,” Garvey says. “And the recommendations for individuals coming from parts of the world where their is ongoing Ebola activity are really based upon the exposures that they’ve had, but people who have not had contact with anyone who is ill from Ebola, the recommendation is to just take their temperature daily.”

Dr. Garvey says it would be “extremely unlikely” one of those visitors would come down with symptoms, but if they get a fever, there is “appropriate care” available here. One of four medical missionaries from the U.S. who got Ebola in Africa was treated at an Omaha hospital. Dr. Richard Sacra was released last week and he’s not ruling out a return to Liberia.

(Radio Iowa)

The Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship today (Thursday) announced that the test results from the depopulation of a quarantined captive deer herd in north-central Iowa showed that 284 of the 356 deer, or 79.8% of the herd, tested positive for Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD). The owners of the quarantined herd have entered into a fence maintenance agreement with the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, which requires the owners to maintain the 8’ foot perimeter fence around the herd premises for five years after the depopulation was complete and the premises had been cleaned and disinfected

CWD is a progressive, fatal, degenerative neurological disease of farmed and free-ranging deer, elk, and moose. There is no known treatment or vaccine for CWD. CWD is not a disease that affects humans.

On July 18, 2012, USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service’s (APHIS) National Veterinary Services Lab in Ames, IA confirmed that a male white tail deer harvested from a hunting preserve in southeast IA was positive for CWD. An investigation revealed that this animal had just been introduced into the hunting preserve from the above-referenced captive deer herd in north-central Iowa.

The captive deer herd was immediately quarantined to prevent the spread of CWD. The herd has remained in quarantine until its depopulation on August 25 to 27, 2014. The Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship participated in a joint operation to depopulate the infected herd with USDA Veterinary Services, which was the lead agency, and USDA Wildlife Services.

Once the depopulation was complete and the premises had been cleaned and disinfected, indemnity of $917,100.00 from the USDA has been or will be paid to the owners as compensation for the 356 captive deer depopulated. The Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship operates a voluntary CWD program for farms that sell live animals. Currently 145 Iowa farms participate in the voluntary program. The above-referenced captive deer facility left the voluntary CWD program prior to the discovery of the disease as they had stopped selling live animals. All deer harvested in a hunting preserve must be tested for CWD.

A double-wide mobile home was destroyed by fire early this (Thursday) morning, west/southwest of Portsmouth, in rural Harrison County. According to Persia Firefighter Bob Simon, the department was dispatched at around midnight to the fully engulfed structure at 3832 260th Street, and was on the scene until about 3-a.m.  Crews from Persia and Panama provided mutual aide to Portsmouth Fire.

A couple living in the mobile home was in the process of moving. The cause of the blaze was not immediately known.