Here's a story from last week. Given that 30% of these people are expected to already have the antibodies to Hep A, why vaccinate all of them, when they could get a simple quick Select Vaccines test at the GP ...
About 225 get shots to prevent hepatitis A Ginny Skalski : The Herald-Sun [email protected] Aug 13, 2004 : 7:43 pm ET
DURHAM -- About 225 people streamed into the Durham County Health Department on Friday to receive shots that could prevent hepatitis A after a worker at the Big Bowl restaurant reported being infected with the viral disease.
Health officials cautioned Thursday that diners who visited the Durham restaurant, located at The Streets at Southpoint, on July 24, 25, 26 and 30 and Aug. 2 and 8 could have been exposed to the disease.
The Health Department, at 414 E. Main St., will offer free hepatitis A immune globulin shots again today, from 8:30 a.m. to noon, to anyone who ate or drank at the restaurant on Aug. 2 and 8.
The N.C. Division of Public Health delivered a thousand doses of immune globulin to the Health Department on Thursday night.
The shot only works to prevent hepatitis A when given within two weeks of exposure, said county health director Brian Letourneau. As a result, immune globulin will only be given to people who were at the restaurant between 4 and 10 p.m. Aug. 2 and 4 and 9 p.m. Aug. 8.
Letourneau said he's received mixed reactions from people who have come in to receive the shot.
"It runs the gamut from being angry to being accommodating and accepting of the circumstances," he said.
Hepatitis A is a highly infectious liver disease usually contracted when food or drinks are contaminated with traces of fecal material.
Symptoms of the disease include tiredness, loss of appetite, fever, abdominal discomfort, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and yellowing of the skin and white's of the eyes. It can also darken urine. Children with the infection often don't show any symptoms.
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