— Is there cause for alarm after confirmation of an outbreak of hepatitis A?
–No. The alarm may have been caused by the number of reported cases rather than the severity of the disease. Hepatitis A behaves benignly. It is not like other types of hepatitis and, in fact, in children under six years of age, more than 90% of cases are asymptomatic. In older people, when infected, typical symptoms such as jaundice or fever occur, but this condition lasts one or two weeks, in some cases a little longer, but later goes away without causing complications. There may be people with pre-existing liver disease or who are immunocompromised in whom it can be complicated, but in the vast majority of cases the disease is benign and, once it resolves, provides lifelong immunity.
— What symptoms may occur in sick people?
-Sometimes children may have a little tummy ache; They are more tired and usually have a fever or diarrhea. There we may think that they have contracted the disease. In adults, the typical yellow color appears – jaundice. Also the characteristic color of urine is like that of a cola drink. In addition, you experience fatigue, fever, and abdominal pain, as well as analytical changes because you see liver function tests changing as well.
— It came to our attention that there was evidence of an outbreak on September 25, but this was not known until now, probably after messages began circulating among residents warning of hepatitis cases in Santa Eularia.
“We confirmed this on the first day, September 25 last year. The activities carried out by the Surveillance Unit are strictly consistent with the surveillance protocol outlined in RENAVE, the National Surveillance Network, although there is no indication that, for example, the City Council must be notified. All measures specified in the protocol to be implemented have been promoted from day one. True, we had about ten sick people, and you think that their roommates should be vaccinated. After we vaccinated more people, we saw more people getting sick, but our actions from the very beginning were those established by the protocol.
“They didn’t tell the Santa Eularia City Council anything.”
“They didn’t tell you because two days after the outbreak was confirmed, we tested the water and the results were negative.” The water is perfectly drinkable, and furthermore, we never imagined that the source of the outbreak might be outside the nursery, so there was no point in alarming or warning the city council. The origin has been localized.
— You noted that vaccination among adults causes resistance.
“We must call for accountability because this is the only way to break the chain of transmission. There is no other way and, moreover, it is a disease in which children are asymptomatic. They are sick, they destroy viruses, and we don’t know it. Therefore, we must protect ourselves, and we can only do this if we get vaccinated. What caught our attention was that when we started vaccinating and called 80 people, 30 of them children, only eight adults were vaccinated. We must be responsible because we have no other way to stop the spread of the virus.
— Do outbreaks of hepatitis A occur often?
“Isolated cases are normal, but outbreaks are rare.” So we are monitoring to try to contain it as quickly as possible.