Bartholomew County health officials have announced they are working with the state health department to hold a series of hepatitis A vaccination clinics to combat the steep rise in infections locally.
The first two clinics will be June 24 and June 28 at Love Chapel Food Chapel, located at 311 Center St. in Columbus, from 9 a.m. to noon. Local health officials expect to hold three to five additional vaccination clinics throughout the county by the end of August, said Amanda Organist, director of nursing at the Bartholomew County Health Department.
No further information is currently available on the other vaccination clinics, Organist said. Previous hepatitis A vaccination clinics have been held at the Bartholomew County Public Library, Salvation Army and the FairOaks Mall.
“We’re just trying different locations to reach as many people as we can,” she said.
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The series of vaccination clinics are being scheduled as federal, state and local health officials scramble to contain a major outbreak of hepatitis A that has hit 20 states, including Indiana, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control.
As of June 7, Bartholomew County had 49 confirmed cases of the disease, according to figures from the Bartholomew County Health Department. Typically, the county sees one to two cases per year, health officials said. There have not been any deaths as a result of a hepatitis A infection, county officials said.
Indiana has seen 1,544 cases of the disease since 2016 — the sixth highest in the country. Before the outbreak, the state had previously averaged around 20 cases of hepatitis A per year, according to the Indiana State Department of Health.
So far, four people have died and 834 have been hospitalized in Indiana due to the disease, according to state figures.
Kentucky and Ohio have seen the most cases of any state, accounting for roughly 40 percent of the 19,723 cases of hepatitis A across the country since CDC officials identified the outbreak in 2016.
“We’re concerned,” said Collis Mayfield, Bartholomew County Health Department administrator. “We’re not finding any connections (between cases) … They’re popping up in different places. It’s not breaking out where we can connect them to a certain group or certain place. The people that we find generally have never heard of the other (infected) people. It’s a difficult thing to find. That’s why we’re going around and vaccinating as many people as we can.”
Last month, Bartholomew County health officials immunized around 700 local restaurant patrons after an employee at Mark Pi’s China Gate and another at Amazing Joe’s restaurant were diagnosed with hepatitis A.
Mayfield said the vast majority of hepatitis A cases are not related to restaurants or their employees.
Hepatitis A is a highly contagious, vaccine-preventable viral liver infection that can cause loss of appetite, nausea, tiredness, fever, stomach pain, brown-colored urine and light-colored stools.
The virus spreads when a person unknowingly ingests the virus from objects, food or drinks contaminated with infected fecal matter. This often happens when an infected person fails to wash his or her hands adequately after using the bathroom or engages in behaviors that increase the risk of infection, the health department said.
Health officials have administered 2,853 hepatitis A vaccines in Bartholomew County since the outbreak started, according to state figures.
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What: Hepatitis A vaccination clinic
When: 9 a.m. to noon June 24 and June 28
Where: Love Chapel Food Pantry, 311 Center St. in Columbus
How much: Free
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