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Jan. 4, 2001 By Shane Benjamin A total of 11 cases of Hepatitis A have been confirmed in La Plata County, according to the San Juan Basin Health Department. All cases center around children who attend Florida Mesa Elementary and their families, said Joe Fowler, a registered nurse at the Health Department. Eight of the cases are students at the school, two are parents and one is an infant, Fowler said. Most of the Florida Mesa students infected with the virus are in kindergarten, one was in the first grade and one was in a Head Start class, he said. Fowler said the 11 cases of Hepatitis A is the largest number of confirmed cases the Health Department has seen in at least 20 years. "We’ve had other outbreaks where there were maybe eight or nine cases, so it’s not like it’s a radical difference, but yeah, it is a significant number of people," he said. La Plata County has historically had a higher rate of Hepatitis A compared to the national average, Fowler said. Nationally, the average number of confirmed Hepatitis A cases is about 10 per every 100,000 people each year, he said. In La Plata County there was a rate of 12.2 cases per year between 1988 and 1998, he said. The reason for a higher-than-average rate in the county is not completely known, Fowler said. The San Juan Basin Health Department first issued a Hepatitis A alert Dec. 6 after four children and family members were confirmed to have the infection. "I think the key to why this has spread is because of the age group in which it took place," Fowler said. Kindergartners can go to the bathroom by themselves but don’t have adult supervision to make sure they wash their hands, he said. Hepatitis A is found in the stools of people with the disease. It is spread from person to person when hands come in contact with the fecal matter and then touch food or other objects that another person puts into his or her mouth, according to the San Juan Basin Health Department. Symptoms of hepatitis A include nausea, fatigue, loss of appetite, fever, headache and abdominal pain, light-colored stools, brown urine and jaundice, which is a yellowing of the skin and eyes. Some people with hepatitis A, which can cause liver damage, may get sick enough to require hospitalization, but the disease is generally not life-threatening. Anyone who is ill and has been exposed to a person with Hepatitis A should contact their physician immediately, according to the health department. Fowler said Florida Mesa Elementary has been teaching students about the importance of hand-washing after going to the restroom and periodically throughout the day. "(The school) has done all anybody could do," he said. "They’ve cleaned door handles, drinking fountains, desk tops – everything they can think of. "Florida Mesa has worked with us throughout this and followed every recommendation that we have given them." Fowler said the entire kindergarten class has been given immune globulin vaccinations to help prevent further spreading of the disease. Immune globulin can be given to family members and others who have had direct contact with an infected person within 14 days of exposure to help protect them from the disease and to help prevent further spreading of the disease, according to the San Juan Basin Health Department. A few parents took their children out of the school before the holiday break because of the virus. He said it is not necessary for parents to make their children miss school as long as proper hand-washing can be followed. "Really, all it takes to stop Hepatitis A is good hand-washing," he said. "If everybody washed their hands well there would be no more cases. "The school is going to be clean as a whistle when those kids go back to school, so I don’t think there is any reason for parents to hold kids out of school after the vacation." |
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Copyright © 2001 the Cortez Journal.
All rights reserved. |
