Local News
BY JONATHAN ATHENS, STAFF WRITER
Jun 8, 2005
County health officials on Tuesday said they are mobilizing to halt a possible outbreak of hepatitis A as a result of a food handler at a popular Yuma restaurant recently being diagnosed with the illness.
Officials said they will hold clinics the remainder of this week and throughout next week to administer immunity booster shots to those who may have been exposed to the infection — an estimated 6,000 to 8,000 people.
Health department officials said anyone who ate or drank at Chile Pepper, 1030 W. 24th St., between May 25 and June 2 may have been exposed.

Continue Reading Hepatitis A case confirmed; county goes on full alert

Tuesday, May 31, 2005
School warns parents in letters
By Michael Woyton
Poughkeepsie Journal
AMENIA — A Webutuck Elementary School student has been diagnosed with hepatitis A.
Superintendent Richard Johns said he received confirmation Thursday the fourth-grader had contracted the virus.
The child, who Johns would not identify, had become ill at school Monday and was hospitalized. She is a student in Mary Murphy’s class.
The child is recovering, said Dr. Janice Weinstein, clinical physician with the Dutchess County Department of Health.

Continue Reading Webutuck student ill with hepatitis A

5/24/05
27% of the population of Dickens County is being treated for Hepatitis A. The State of Texas has now issued a Hepatitis Alert after 22 people tested positive for the disease which is passed from person to person. The city of Spur lies in the heart of Dickens County, 73 miles East of Lubbock. That’s where more than 1,000 people have received preventive shots of immune globulin in the past two days.
But the citizens of Dickens County are handing the blame to health officials, claiming they should have stopped this long before it surfaced at May Day celebrations in Spur.

Continue Reading Dickens County Residents Blame Health Officials For Outbreak

Ken Morgan
May 20, 2005
Hepatitis, an inflammation of the liver, affects many Americans. There are more than 100 causes of hepatitis and the most common one in the United States is alcohol. If hepatitis is caused by a virus it is given a letter, like hepatitis A, B or C. Hepatitis A and B are preventable with a vaccine.
We still see more than 200,000 cases of hepatitis A and more than 300,000 cases of hepatitis B every year. There is no vaccine for hepatitis C. HCV infects more than 650,000 in California and more than 5 million in the United States.

Continue Reading Focus of event will be hepatitis

By Ben Chapman
May 17, 2005, 00:05
Commentary from the Food Safety Network
This is usually my favourite time of year — springtime brings the NHL playoffs.
Normally it’s non-stop hockey on television, in the news and on my mind. Though the World Championships have just ended in Austria, it just was not the same. I sat this one out and I wasn’t the only one. Patrick Elias of the gold medal-winning Czech Republic and the New Jersey Devils, yearly foe of my beloved Toronto Maple Leafs, was also on the shelf.
But Elias didn’t miss the Championships as a result of indifference towards international hockey. Elias didn’t play because he’s been battling a hepatitis A infection that he’s had since March. The Czech winger spent four weeks in the hospital, lost about 30 pounds, missed the remainder of the Russian hockey season (where he had been playing to pass the time) and finally the World Championships. All this due to what his agent described as bad seafood in a Russian airport. Elias is one of an increasing number of people to fall victim to this sneaky virus.

Continue Reading Hockey takes a shot from Hepatitis A

Hepatitis A is a nationally reportable condition, and the surveillance case definition* includes both clinical criteria and serologic confirmation (1). State health departments and CDC have investigated persons with positive serologic tests for acute hepatitis A virus (HAV) infection (i.e., IgM anti-HAV) whose illness was not consistent with the clinical criteria of the hepatitis A case definition. Test results indicating acute HAV infection among persons who do not have clinical or epidemiologic features consistent with hepatitis A are a concern for state and local health departments because of the need to assess whether contacts need postexposure immunoprophylaxis.
This report summarizes results of three such investigations, which suggested that most of the positive tests did not represent recent acute HAV infections. To improve the predictive value of a positive IgM anti-HAV test, clinicians should limit laboratory testing for acute HAV infection to persons with clinical findings typical of hepatitis A or to persons who have been exposed to settings where HAV transmission is suspected.

Continue Reading Positive Test Results for Acute Hepatitis A Virus Infection Among Persons With No Recent History of Acute Hepatitis — United States, 2002–2004

New rules target green onions, are tougher than in U.S.
By Diane Lindquist
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
May 15, 2005
MEXICALI — After the deadly hepatitis A outbreak linked to Baja California green onions a year and a half ago, Mexico has imposed an unprecedented food safety program that far exceeds practices in the United States.
“If you’re going to grow onions in Baja California, you’re going to do it right,” said Baja California Agriculture Secretary Juan Pablo Hern*ndez.
The program, which started in spring, requires Baja California growers and packers who export green onions to the United States to be certified as having good food safety practices. Among the new rules that solely target Baja California green onions are state inspections of living and working conditions in the state’s fields and packaging sheds.
It’s Mexico’s first mandatory food safety certification program.
In the United States, the federal government’s guidelines for all crops are voluntary and do not require inspections.

Continue Reading Mexico tests recipe for food safety

Fri May 13, 2005
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Routinely testing people for hepatitis A virus (HAV) — when they don’t have clinical symptoms of infection or a history of exposure — raises the likelihood of false-positive results, investigators report.
Hepatitis A is most often caught when sanitation is poor, or when carriers are not careful about personal hygiene. A false-positive test result may mean that a person’s contacts undergo unnecessary treatment to prevent infection.
Dr. Z. F. Dembek, at the Connecticut Department of Public Health, and colleagues investigated cases that tested positive for HAV in Connecticut and Alaska. They report their findings in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, put out by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In Connecticut, 127 positive test results were reported between 2002 and 2003, but only 108 of the patients had illness consistent with acute hepatitis A. Of the remaining 19 considered to be false-positives, 9 had no symptoms of any illness and 10 had clinical signs that were not consistent with hepatitis A.

Continue Reading Hepatitis A test often misleading