May 2006

The JHU Gazette
May 1, 2006
John Hopkins University
Hepatitis A vaccination is safe in HIV-infected children but may be less effective in creating immunity than it is in healthy children. Therefore, health care providers of HIV-infected children should confirm their immunity after vaccination, according to the findings of a new study from Johns Hopkins Children’s Center.
HIV-positive children are at a greater risk of bacterial and viral infections, including hepatitis A, than healthy children. Hepatitis A can damage the liver, an organ that might be already compromised in children with HIV because of antiviral medications and HIV-related opportunistic infections.
“We know it’s important to prevent hepatitis A infection in children with HIV,” said the study’s senior author, George Siberry, assistant professor of pediatrics. “However, we’ve had very little information about how their HIV infection might prevent them from responding to the hepatitis A vaccine. This study helps answer that question.”Continue Reading Docs Should Confirm Hepatitis A in HIV-Positive Kids After Vaccination

Passport Health offers vaccinations tailored to people’s destinations.
By Robert Annis
Robert.Annis@TheNoblesvilleLedger.com
May 2, 2006
INDIANAPOLIS — Whether you’re looking forward to an African safari, an adoption in Asia or mission work in Latin America, it’s best to plan ahead.
Passport Health, 1030 E. 86th St., can help. Part of a nationwide chain, the northside Indianapolis office opened last fall and has vaccinated people traveling to Ethiopia and Indonesia as well as first responders heading to New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
“Our goal is to provide as much information to the client as possible,” said Michael Durs, president. “Our conversations depend on your health history and where you’re going. You’ve got to be careful when you’re traveling overseas, even if you’re staying at the Ritz-Carlton.”Continue Reading Service gets travelers immunized and on trek

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.Continue Reading How is Hepatitis A transmitted?

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
May 2, 2006
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Worried about colds, flu and other germs? Go ahead and touch those doorknobs and elevator buttons, but watch out for the telephone, fresh laundry and sinks, a top expert advises.
And while you should always wash your hands before making a meal, many people do not realize that they should do so afterwards also, says Charles Gerba, a microbiologist and clean water expert at the University of Arizona.
“Most of the common infections — colds, flu, diarrhea — you get environmentally transmitted either in the air or on surfaces you touch. I think people under-rate surfaces,” Gerba said in a telephone interview.Continue Reading Fear the phone, not the doorknob, US germ expert says

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…