Press Releases

North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Mandy K. Cohen, M.D. today issued the below Secretarial Advisory, urging the following actions to prevent serious illness, hospitalization and death from COVID-19.

Programs that provide overdose prevention and syringe access are serving more people and potentially saving more lives, according to the 2020-2021 North Carolina Safer Syringe Initiative Annual Report released by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services today announced a new dental public health training program: Oral Health Training Program for Adults with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (I/DD). The program, launched by NCDHHS’s Division of Public Health’s Oral Health Section, aligns with its mission to improve the oral health of North Carolinians and to support dental public health workforce development.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends anyone 18 years or older who received the Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 vaccine get a booster six months after their second dose to help strengthen and extend protections against COVID-19. This comes after the Food and Drug Administration aut

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services will host a live fireside chat and tele-town hall on Tuesday, Nov. 9, from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m.

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services released the North Carolina Violent Death Reporting System (NC-VDRS) Data Dashboard, an interactive online dashboard that provides aggregate information on violent deaths for all 100 counties in North Carolina. The NC-VDRS dashboard, funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was created to make data more accessible to public health partners to inform the development, implementation and evaluation of prevention efforts around violence and safety.

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services today announced it is working with the United States Department of Agriculture to help prevent the spread of rabies by distributing oral rabies vaccine for wild raccoons along western North Carolina’s borders with Tennessee, Georgia and Virginia.

Eastern equine encephalitis (EEE) virus has recently been identified in eastern North Carolina. Horses in three counties — Brunswick, Pender and Onslow — were recently diagnosed with EEE. In addition, EEE virus was detected in a mosquito sample from New Hanover County. No human cases of EEE have been identified in North Carolina so far this year.

Advisors to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced today the Pfizer-BioNTech (COMIRNATY) COVID-19 booster shot is safe, effective and recommended for individuals who have been fully vaccinated for at least six months and are: 65 years and older; at high risk of severe COVID-19; and, at high risk of occupational exposure. 

As part of its effort to help more North Carolinians protect themselves against COVID-19 and the highly contagious Delta variant, North Carolina is now offering $100 Summer Cards at some vaccine sites across the state to offset the time and transportation costs of getting vaccinated.