CHICAGO (Reuters) – Cases of hepatitis A have fallen by 76 percent in the United States since children in communities with the highest rates of the disease were targeted for vaccination in recent years, a study said on Tuesday.
In the 1980s and 1990s, 26,000 cases of hepatitis A were reported to public health officials each year, a fraction of the cases that probably occurred but were not reported because many victims do not have symptoms, the study said.
More than half of the estimated infections of the disease — which can cause flu-like symptoms and jaundice — occurred in children, the study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

Hepatitis is a viral infection that attacks the liver. There are several varieties, and type A is considered less threatening than some others that can cause liver failure and death. Hepatitis A is spread by fecal contamination of water and food.
A highly effective hepatitis A vaccine became available in the United States for children age 2 or older in 1995, according to the report in this week’s Journal of the American Medical Association.
A year later medical experts recommended targeting vaccinations toward children living in communities with higher incidence of the disease such as Native American settlements.
Adults with high risk of the disease, such as men who have sex with men, users of illegal drugs and travelers to countries where the disease is endemic, were also targeted for vaccinations.
In 1999, recommendations for routine vaccination were expanded to include children living in 17 states that had consistently elevated hepatitis A rates.
Cases fell 76 percent to 2.6 per 100,000 people in 2003 compared to the early and mid-1990s, researchers found. Declines were greatest in children ages 2 to 18, at 87 percent, the report said.
The regional, targeted vaccination approach appears to be a novel one, the report said, but eliminating the disease would require “expansion of existing recommendations to include routine vaccination of all U.S. children.”
A second study on the subject published in the same journal found that the overall incidence of hepatitis A fell by 95 percent in Israel since free routine vaccination of toddlers began in 1999.