Employees who handle West Nile virus data for the state health department said Friday they try to put out the most accurate information to the public as quickly as they can.

The employees were responding to a story in Friday's Tribune that they said mischaracterized their performance.

Tracy Miller and Michelle Feist said the department does the best it can to inform the public about West Nile. If it takes a while to report on a death or hospitalization due to the virus, it's because the health department is verifying the information with a medical professional, Miller said.

"We try to be very methodical about confirming these deaths that are due to whatever illness," Miller said. "We don't want to release preliminary data and then have to back off on that. … We don't want to falsely inflate those numbers."

A story on Friday's front page reported the West Nile-related death of an 89-year-old Roseglen man. Clifford Kolden was the second man to die from West Nile in North Dakota this year.

The story said Kolden's physician confirmed he died from West Nile well before the health department released any news about it. The department's own tests came back positive nearly a week before they announced another man had died from West Nile. Kolden's obituary, which ran Sunday, said he died from West Nile virus.

The health department released the news - without identifying Kolden because it doesn't confirm information on particular cases - on Thursday.

Feist said the department doesn't conceal news from the public. Sometimes it just takes longer to verify the data.

She said a positive lab result for West Nile is not enough information to confirm that someone died from the disease. The health department follows up on every report of West Nile it gets. The tests come in without information as to the patient's current status, Miller said. So it's not known if someone died from West Nile until it's confirmed by the patient's medical records.

As a case in point, the story also said the department was investigating another possible death related to West Nile. In that case, it was determined the person died from another cause. That, Miller said, is why they make sure they have all of the information right before they put it out for public consumption.

Miller said the department realizes people are interested in knowing about human cases of West Nile as quickly as they can.

"We try to get out as much information as possible,"she said. "People in general will pay more attention once you start having human cases.

"It just takes us a while to get the correct information,"Miller said.

The health department updates the West Nile figures every Wednesday.