FROM STAFF REPORTS
Jun 9, 2005
Hepatitis A is transmitted when someone puts food or something else in the mouth that has been contaminated with the stool of another person who has hepatitis A, says Yuma County’s acting public health services director.
For example, it can be spread when food is handled by someone who has not washed his or her hands or not washed them thoroughly after having used the bathroom, Becky Brooks said.

The person ingesting food contaminated by stool can become infected, but the infection cannot be otherwise transmitted through person-to-person contact, she said.
Brooks’ department on Wednesday began administering free gamma globulin shots after they learned a woman who worked as a food handler at a popular Yuma restaurant, Chile Pepper, had become infected with hepatitis A.
But county officials say the likelihood that the restaurant’s customers were infected by the food handler is remote.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, people infected with the hepatitis A virus may not have signs or symptoms of the disease.
Older persons are more likely to have symptoms than are children.
If symptoms are present, they usually occur abruptly and may include fever, tiredness, loss of appetite, nausea, abdominal discomfort, dark urine, and jaundice — yellowing of the skin and eyes.
Symptoms usually last less than two months; a few persons are ill for as long as six months, the CDC says.
The incubation period for hepatitis A is 15 to 50 days, according to the CDC.
County officials say the illness “is rarely fatal” and its severity ranges from mild to moderate.