January 12, 2006
Stuff (New Zealand)
Joanna Davis
Relatives and close contacts of Canterbury people infected with hepatitis A are being offered protective drugs after two more people were diagnosed with the viral liver disease.
Twelve people have now been infected since Christmas in Canterbury’s largest outbreak for more than five years. Normally only two or three cases of the jaundice-causing disease are identified each year in the region.
Canterbury District Health Board medical officer of health Dr Mel Brieseman said the two latest cases were close contacts of those earlier diagnosed.

“When we identified the other cases (on Tuesday), there were some people with symptoms. We suggested they get tested, and those results are back,” he said.
Relatives and close contacts of the affected people would be offered immunoglobulin, which would act as “passive immunisation” against the virus.
“If it’s given in time, within the first couple of weeks, it should kill the virus,” Brieseman said. “Unfortunately, because of the virus’s long incubation time (up to seven weeks), it’s often of limited usefulness.”
The public health team had not yet pinned down a source for the infection.
Poor food hygiene was the most likely cause of the outbreak, he said. The virus was usually passed on through faecal contamination on foodstuffs.
Health protection officers were still trying to find a connection among those infected. Brieseman urged people with symptoms, which included general malaise, abdominal discomfort, tiredness, nausea, fever and jaundice, to contact their family doctor for testing.