David O’Brien
Record-Courier staff writer
9/6/2006

Three days after announcing a male student had contracted Hepatitis A and could potentially have passed the virus to others through his job preparing catered meals, Kent State Universitys chief physician said no further cases of the liver disease have been identified.

Dr. Ray Leone said University Health Services had immunized approximately 394 people out of the almost 500 thought to be most at risk for contracting the disease as of noon Tuesday. Between 40 and 50 doses of immune globulin were distributed Friday, more than 200 before 1 p.m. Saturday, and slightly more than 100 during Sunday and Monday.

A total of 380 people were immunized against the non-life-threatening disease by Monday evening. All those potentially affected have since been notified and most of those immunized.

A number of KSU athletes who were on campus between Aug. 18 and Aug. 24 the dates when infection was most likely to occur were among those immunized. Leone said they were most at risk because they ate multiple catered meals potentially prepared by the male student, even though the risk of food-borne transmission of the Hepatitis A virus was low from the start, health officials have said.

A female student thought to have independently contracted Hepatitis A was treated and discharged from Robinson Memorial Hospital in Ravenna, he said, with what Leone said he suspects was a case of mononucleosis. That condition can cause liver inflammation, he said.

Shes doing well, Leone said, and her condition became less and less suspicious over time. Doctors now suspect her liver became inflamed as a result of the mononucleosis, as a hepatitis profile showed she was negative for Hepatitis B.

The results of her tests for Hepatitis A had not reached Leone by Tuesday afternoon.

I have every reason to believe (the results) will be negative for Hepatitis A, he said. Its possible, but pretty unusual, to have both mono and Hepatitis A.

The immunizations are effective until Thursday, after which the time frame for the appearance of symptoms will have ended and anyone who has not presented symptoms is in the clear, Leone said. He also said the possibility of an outbreak actually aided the investigation and immunization effort.

It helped us become more efficient because we realized what might be at stake, Leone said. Youll find one case, and you cant figure out the origin because it was just the one. With multiple cases you can almost always track them down. Unfortunately, you only get to do that because more people get sick.

Leone called it an uncanny coincidence that two students completely unknown to each other would present with symptoms of hepatitis on the same day. Public health officials determined early on that the female student did not eat any meals prepared by the male student, and that neither student knew each other.

We only had the one confirmed case, but the young woman we suspected of having hepatitis, that was just too much of a coincidence to ignore, he said. There was just never the degree of liver inflammation you see with Hepatitis A.

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