After mounting pressure in recent months from local government officials, advocacy groups and a state agency, the county health department is now looking into reports of increased gastrointestinal illness at a South Bay urgent care clinic, Dr. Wilma Wooten, the region’s public health director, confirmed last week.
Dr. Kimberly Dickson, who runs South Bay Urgent Care in San Diego with her husband, Dr. Matt Dickson, said the clinic has noticed an uptick in gastrointestinal illness and diarrhea that appear to coincide when heavy rain pushes raw sewage across the border from Tijuana.
“We are concerned about the number of positive tests showing organisms such as E.coli, salmonella, shigella, campylobacter and norovirus,” Kimberly Dickson said.
Water and air pollution have worsened in recent years because of an inoperable wastewater plant in Baja California, a pipeline rupture, deferred maintenance and severe rainstorms. Tijuana and San Diego County’s southwest region are bearing the health and economic costs.