Hepatitis A Lawyer & Attorney : Marler Clark : Hepatitis A Blog

Mar. 31, 2006
CLINIC OFFERED AT YATES ELEMENTARY
By Raviya H. Ismail
HERALD-LEADER EDUCATION WRITER

Amid rising concern about the hepatitis A outbreak, Yates Elementary School parents took advantage of a second clinic offered by the health department yesterday.

Many Yates parents thought at first that they wouldn't be affected because the initial cases were reported only at Mary Todd Elementary.

"At first we didn't get the shot, but then as more cases began to develop we decided to get a shot as a preventative measure," said Irene Johnson, who brought her 4-year-old grandson to get a shot. "I feel better now."

• Print
• Share Link

4 new cases; it's unclear how some became ill
By Barbara Isaacs
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER

Health department investigators yesterday tracked four new cases of hepatitis A, expanding a Fayette County outbreak that has now sickened 14 people.

Disease investigators, called epidemiologists, were still trying to determine how some of the victims became ill.

Some of those connections between victims are obvious. The first reported cases were among an extended family in two households. The family's toddler was exposed to hepatitis A while traveling outside the United States. The family's kindergartner, who attends Mary Todd Elementary, passed it to two classmates. Then a neighbor of the family got the disease.

• Print
• Share Link

By Barbara Isaacs
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER

Three more cases of hepatitis A have been reported to the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department, raising the total number of cases to 13 since February.

All three new cases are adults -- two women and one man. Only one of them has an obvious connection to people who had previously been diagnosed with the illness.

"The other two, strangely enough, do not have any commonality with any of the existing cases that we know of," said Jim Wilkins, a spokesman for the health department.

• Print
• Share Link

March 30, 2006
Lexington Herald-Leader (KY)
Barbara Isaacs

A fourth kindergarten student at Lexington's Mary Todd Elementary has been diagnosed with hepatitis A, health department officials reported yesterday.

Earlier this week, a child in Early Start at Yates Elementary also was diagnosed with the disease. That child was in a class of 15 children, ages 3 to 4.

Yesterday's new diagnosis at Mary Todd means that 10 cases of hepatitis A have been reported in Fayette County since early February -- three adults and seven children.

• Print
• Share Link

March 27, 2006
The Produce News
Joan Murphy

Los Angeles County health officials implicated lettuce in a hepatitis A outbreak on a movie set late last year, and now the law firm Marler Clark has filed lawsuits against a caterer and a lettuce distributor on behalf of sickened film crew members.

Workers on the set of "The Good German," a film starring George Clooney and Cate Blanchett, filed a lawsuit against Silver Grill Location Catering and Soleil Produce Inc., said the Seattle-based law firm. According to the suit, Soleil Produce supplied the pre-packaged baby greens on the California film set.

"Contaminated lettuce has been the source of a number of foodborne illness outbreaks over the last five years," said R. Drew Falkenstein, an associate at Marler Clark. "The foodservice industry is aware of the risks associated with fresh produce and needs to do more to protect its consumers."

• Print
• Share Link

Thu, Mar. 30, 2006

Kentucky-A shot clinic is scheduled at Yates Elementary from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. today. Students, faculty and school aides who work with the afternoon Early Start class at Yates will receive immune globulin and hepatitis A vaccine at no cost.

Hepatitis A vaccines are available to others, such as family members of the Early Start afternoon class -- but there is a $25 charge for a child and $45 for an adult. For people who have symptoms of hepatitis A, a health department nurse can draw blood, at no charge, to confirm whether the virus is present.

• Print
• Share Link

3/28/2006
By: Emily E. Sickbert-Bennett, UNC Health Care

Long before your mother taught you the importance of washing your hands as she lifted you up to reach the sink so you could wash before dinner, the effectiveness of hand washing was first recognized and described by a Hungarian physician, Ignaz Semmelweis, in 1846. Hand washing remains a timeless and effective intervention for preventing the spread of infections.

Hands can pick up disease-causing bacteria and viruses from contaminated environments or from an ill person or animal. Most microorganisms (e.g., bacteria and viruses) can survive on the hands for several minutes to hours. If you touch your mouth, nose or eyes with contaminated hands, these organisms can enter your body and cause infections. In addition, when you touch objects with your contaminated hands, you can spread the microorganisms to other objects that you touch.

• Print
• Share Link

March 28, 2006
Knight-Ridder Tribune
Barbara Isaacs, The Lexington Herald-Leader, Ky.

A case of hepatitis A has been reported in a child in the morning session of Early Start at Yates Elementary School in Lexington.

The Lexington-Fayette County Health Department, which is investigating the case, said yesterday that there is no known connection between this case and three cases of hepatitis A confirmed at Mary Todd Elementary School last week.

The health department is recommending that children who have been in morning Early Start class at Yates during the past two weeks, and school staff who are in regular contact with them, get immune globulin shots and hepatitis A vaccinations. The shots will be given today at Yates from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m.

• Print
• Share Link

March 28, 2006

Another Lexington elementary school student has been diagnosed with hepatitis A.

The student attends Yates Elementary, but health officials say they don't think this case has any relationship to three cases of the disease at another Lexington school.

Two kindergarten students and a second grade student at Mary Todd Elementary school tested positive for hepatitis A last week. Health officials say the Mary Todd cases originated from an out of state source.

• Print
• Share Link

March 23, 2006
WLEX-TV (KY)

The Lexington-Fayette County Health Department has confirmed that three students at a Lexington elementary school have tested positive for Hepatitis A, but also say there is no cause for alarm.

The students, a second-grader and two kindergartners, attend Mary Todd Elementary. Officials say the two kindergarten students are in same class, and the second-grader is the sibling of one of them. The virus is believed to have been contracted out of state by the second-grade student, who has already returned to school.

The health department will be offering shots to the students in the kindergarten class, school employees who were around the kindergarten class and family members of the students. A clinic will also be offered at school Friday from 3pm-6pm and Saturday from 10am-1pml.

• Print
• Share Link

March 20, 2006
Beaver County Times (PA)
Robyn Russo

Beaver Valley Mall in Penn. Is, according to this story, believed to be the center of America's largest hepatitis A outbreak. In the fall of 2003, tainted green onions used in the mall's Chi Chi's restaurant sickened about 650 people, killing three.

The story says that Kathleen Maher, a 17-year-old Sewickley resident and Quigley Catholic High School junior, saw the outbreak as a chance to do some serious scientific research. Maher, the daughter of a nurse and a surgeon with interests in becoming a doctor herself, reasoned that since not everyone who contracted the disease ate at the restaurant, it must have spread due to poor personal hygiene, namely hand washing.

• Print
• Share Link

By Kaitlin Melanson/ kmelanso@cnc.com
Thursday, March 16, 2006

In order to be fully prepared for the unpredictable, the Marblehead Health Department is seeking a little help from its neighbors.

Among the articles gracing this year's warrant is one sponsored by the Board of Health, which seeks to set up a mutual-aid system not much unlike those used by the police and fire departments.

"Essentially, we are looking for a formalized back-up system in case of an emergency," said Health Director Wayne Attridge.

• Print
• Share Link

Hepatitis A is one of five human hepatitis viruses that primarily infect the human liver and cause human illness. (There are many other viruses that can inflame the liver which infect us more generally.) The other known human hepatitis viruses are hepatitis B, C, D, and E. Hepatitis A is relatively unusual in nations with developed sanitation systems such as the United States. Nevertheless, it continues to occur here.

Each year, an estimated 100 persons die as a result of acute liver failure in the United States due to Hepatitis A1. Approximately 30 - 50,000 cases occur yearly in the United States and the direct and indirect costs of these cases exceed $300 million1. The unfortunate aspect of these statistics is that with 21st century medicine, Hepatitis A is totally preventable, and isolated cases, and especially outbreaks relegated to food consumption, need not occur.

• Print
• Share Link

With more and more Americans eating out than ever before, diners need to keep their minds on safety and look for telltale indicators of poor hygiene at restaurants.
By Gary White
The Ledger

Barbara Whitman's 63rd birthday was unforgettable -- and not in a good way. Whitman's two sisters took her out to one of her favorite Lakeland restaurants the night before her birthday last August. She indulged in a crabmeat appetizer and her usual entree, mahi mahi, both of which she found delectable.

Later that night, though, Whitman awoke to a sensation of extreme nausea. The misery carried though her birthday, ruining a home-cooked dinner her sister, Angela Akins, planned for Whitman and their mother, whose birthday was three days later.

• Print
• Share Link

Hepatitis A is a communicable (or contagious) disease that spreads from person to person. It is transmitted by the "fecal -- oral route." This does not mean, or course, that Hepatitis A transmission requires that fecal material from an infectious individual must come in contact directly with the mouth of a susceptible individual. It is almost always true that the virus infects a susceptible individual when he or she ingests it, but it gets to the mouth by an indirect route.

Food contaminated with the virus is the most common vehicle transmitting Hepatitis A. The food preparer or cook is the individual most often contaminating the food. He or she is generally not ill: the peak time of infectivity (i.e., when the most virus is present in the stool of an infectious individual) is during the 2 weeks before illness begins. Hepatitis A is spread almost exclusively through fecal-oral contact, generally from person-to-person, or via contaminated food or water.

• Print
• Share Link

March 10, 2006
My.accenture.com
Jane Woodhead
Source: Liverpool Echo (UK)

A hepatitis outbreak has struck down four children at a Merseyside school and five staff members have also been hit by the liver virus at Lander Road primary in Litherland.

All 215 pupils and staff will receive injections and give mouth swabs on Monday to ensure the hepatitis A outbreak does not spread.

The school has stopped selling toast, turned off its water fountains and instructed all children to wash their hands before and after going into the dining room.

• Print
• Share Link

WVLT-TV Knoxville, TN

A Hepatits A outbreak last year in Campbell County sickend more than 60 people.

Volunteer TV's Eric Waddell updates us on the on-going effort to eliminate the virus from the community.

State health officials are making a final push to get children vaccinated across Campbell County. The reason, the hope is that the spring and summer of 2006 will not hold the same type of problems that happened with Hepatitis A in 2005.

"We have not had a new case of Hepatitis A in Campbell County since September of last year, so we are very encouraged that the vaccination effort is doing what it needs to do," Sandy Halford from the Health Department said.

• Print
• Share Link

By Amanda J. Mantone/ Staff Writer
Thursday, March 9, 2006

Medfield is signing on to a mutual aid agreement that will partner the town with surrounding communities in preparation for a large-scale health disaster.

"I felt it was in the town's best interest," said Kathy Schapira, a member of the town's board of health and a registered nurse who also works as an emergency planner for seven other towns in Massachusetts. She presented the mutual aid agreement to selectmen last week. "I believe in it, and it's good for the town."

The mutual aid agreement, is an inter-municipal state document that binds towns in several regions into voluntary cooperation should a health emergency arise. There's no membership cost for participating, and towns are not help liable if they refuse to help another town in the agreement.

• Print
• Share Link