Nearly 1,200 High School and Elementary School students are being urged to get Immune Globulin shots to prevent the spread of hepatitis A after being exposed to a hepatitis A positive cafeteria worker.

The average incubation period for hepatitis A infection is thirty days, but can be as long as fifty days. Preventive measures are only available for the two weeks after exposure to the virus; therefore, those patrons who ate at the school cafeteria between April 13 and 15 and were exposed to the virus should now be on the look-out for signs of hepatitis A infection.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that 83,000 cases of hepatitis A occur in the United States every year, and at least five percent of these cases are related to foodborne transmission. In 1999, over 10,000 people were hospitalized due to hepatitis A infections and 83 people died. Although the CDC has not called for mandatory vaccination of food service workers, it has repeatedly pointed out that the consumption of worker-contaminated food is a major cause of food borne illness in the United States.
Large, well-publicized hepatitis A outbreaks have become increasingly common in the restaurant industry, including outbreaks linked to last week to a Waffle House in Tennessee, green onions served at a Chi-Chi’s restaurant in Pennsylvania last year, and outbreaks linked to infected food workers at two Seattle Subway franchises, a Carl’s Jr. restaurant in Spokane, Washington, three restaurants in Northwest Arkansas, a large wedding party in Michigan, which resulted in a death, and a large outbreak caused by a deli, D’Angelo’s, in Massachusetts. Thousands of people are forced to receive Immune Globulin injections to prevent infection every year.