Hepatitis A outbreak is worst in two decades for Columbus
Liver disease traced to two restaurants where it was spread.
Columbus is COLUMBUS — trying to head off the worst outbreak of hepatitis A in the last 20 years, in part because of potential infections from two restaurants where workers who handled food were confirmed to have the liver disease.
Since January 2018, Columbus has had 269 cases, including 179 cases in 2018 alone. The last outbreak of that size happened in 1999, when the city had 170 cases.
In a normal year, Columbus sees fewer than 10 hepatitis A cases, said Luke Jacobs, population health division administrator at Columbus Public Health.
City health officials have organized immunization clinics and plan to continue offering vaccines to people who ate at the two restaurants where workers have been confirmed to have hepatitis A.
“This is a preventable infection,” said Kelli Newman Myers, a spokeswoman for Columbus Public Health. “It can be prevented with readily available vaccines.”
Columbus Public Health ran vaccination clinics in January and on Monday. The disease is spread when a person ingests even microscopic amounts of fecal matter from an infected person.
So, if infected restaurant workers don’t wash their hands after using the bathroom, they can spread the disease to customers.
For that reason, practicing good hygiene is critical to keeping the disease from spreading, Myers said.
Drug users, men who have sex with men, the homeless, and travelers to countries where hepatitis A is common all are at increased risk of contracting the disease. People with compromised immune systems and the elderly could be at greater risk.
Symptoms include abdominal pain, fatigue, nausea, vomiting and jaundice, when the eyes and skin turn yellow. It could take more than a month for someone who is infected to begin to show symptoms, Jacobs said.
Columbus has been part of a statewide outbreak that was declared last summer. As of Feb. 11, the Ohio Department of Health said there have been 1,657 cases of hepatitis A statewide.
Columbus finds out about cases in the city from the state Department of Health because it is a reportable illness. The city investigates when it receives reports about an infected individual who works in food service because the disease can be easily transmitted there.
Columbus received two such notifications for workers at Fuzzy’s Taco Shop, 479 N. High St., and Eddy’s Chicken and Waffles, 1808 E. Livingston Ave. The city has offered free vaccines at its clinic, 240 Parsons Ave., for anyone who ate at Fuzzy’s between Jan. 1 and Jan. 16 and at Eddy’s from Feb. 1 and Feb. 11.
The city’s most recent clinic ran from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday with 225 vaccines administered, but it will be available at the immunization clinic during regular hours as well, Myers said. Those hours are available at columbus.gov/publichealth/programs/immunization-programs.
Jacobs said the city has administered about 3,500 vaccines since last year.
“There’s no specific treatment once somebody gets hepatitis A. The best way is to prevent it. That’s why the immunization and vaccination that we’re doing is critical,” said Dr. Jose A. Bazan, associate professor of internal medicine and infectious disease physician at Ohio State University.