Health Officials in Utah are now advising the public that a Hepatitis A “outbreak” is now taking hold in the region. Officials claim that they’ve had 87 diagnoses since May. Utah typically only sees a few cases a year.
“We’d love (people) to know — yes, we’re dealing with a hepatitis A outbreak,” Dr. Dagmar Vitek, medical director of the Salt Lake County Department of Health, said Tuesday. “We … found the first case in early May and knew it was associated with the national outbreak at the time,” Eason said.
60% of the infected have been hospitalized in Utah facilities. Utah health officials are recommending a two-shot hepatitis A vaccine. They claim the current outbreak is a result of the unvaccinated who entered school before mandatory vaccines required hepatitis A.
This comes on the heels of a similar hepatitis A outbreak in San Diego. The city of Detroit has seen 500 infections and 20 deaths resulting from hepatitis A infections.
More than 7,000 vaccine kits have been distributed to public health workers in a push to curb the outbreak, Eason said.
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