San Diego declares public health emergency after death toll from Hepatitis A outbreak rises to 14

 

San Diego declares public health emergency after death toll from Hepatitis A outbreak rises to 14

By
Kevin Martinez

5 September 2017

San Diego County declared a local health emergency on Friday after the death toll from a Hepatitis A outbreak rose to 14, one of the deadliest outbreaks of the disease in the US in decades. The vast majority of the victims, some 70 percent, are homeless and are easily vulnerable to the highly infectious disease.

More than 264 people have been hospitalized since the disease was first reported last November. Between 2012 and 2016, San Diego County tallied an average of 28 acute Hepatitis A cases for each year. In just the last week, there have been 19 new cases and 32 new hospitalizations according to the San Diego Tribune.

The virus weakens liver function, producing jaundice, nausea, fatigue, and in some cases death. It is usually spread through food or water contaminated with feces and has an incubation period of up to 28 days, meaning people can spread the disease before they are aware they have it.

A Centers for Disease Control (CDC) spokesperson said the number of fatalities from this wave of infections was “likely the most deaths in an outbreak [of Hepatitis A] in the US in the past 20 years.” While previous outbreaks were the result of contaminated food being served to the public, the cause of the outbreak in San Diego is still unknown.

Dr. Rohit Loomba, director of hepatology at the University of California at San Diego, told the Guardian, “My gut feeling is it was a common source where somebody might have given food to a group of homeless individuals.”

The unsanitary conditions that the homeless are forced to live under have only exacerbated the problem. “They don’t have a clean water supply to wash their hands, and…

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