Health department investigating after dozens of campers get sick at Rock Eagle

PUTNAM COUNTY, Ga. — The Department of Public Health is investigating after dozens of campers got sick at summer camp.

A spokesperson for the Rock Eagle 4-H Center, which is located in Putnam County and run by the University of Georgia, confirmed to Channel 2 Action News that 54 kids got some sort of stomach virus at camp this week.

A camp official told Channel 2's Richard Elliot that a few kids became ill early in the week, but the camp saw a big spike Thursday morning.

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We began to treat these individuals. Some of the campers went home. Others waited and stayed for the week.  All the kids left this morning,” state 4-H leader Arch Smith said.

Smith says all the fourth, fifth and sixth graders, some 950 in all, were scheduled to go home Friday anyway, but with 750 high schoolers coming this weekend, he decided to cancel that so his staff to do a deep cleaning.

“Please know, we’re doing everything in our power to make sure those kids that arrive on Monday afternoon will have a great week of camp,” Smith said. “We’re doing a deep cleaning today with a deep disinfect. We sent all our summer camp counselors home to allow them to rest and also give our staff the best opportunity to clean the place.”

Smith isn’t sure exactly what kind of virus was going around, only that the kids were sick for between eight to 24 hours.

Cox Media Group