Bartholomew County health officials vaccinated more than 300 customers who had eaten at Mark Pi’s China Gate in the FairOaks Mall after an employee at the restaurant was diagnosed with hepatitis A.
A vaccination clinic was held Thursday at the nursing division of the Bartholomew County Health Department.
The case at Mark Pi’s was at least the third confirmed case of hepatitis A at a restaurant in Columbus this month, as state and county health officials continue to grapple with an outbreak of the disease which, as of May 17, had killed four people and resulted in 753 hospitalizations in Indiana.
While Bartholomew County typically sees six to seven unrelated cases of hepatitis A per year, the county saw 18 or 19 cases last year, said Collis Mayfield, health department administrator. It is relatively rare for restaurant patrons to become infected with hepatitis A due to an infected food handler, Mayfield said.
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However, the outbreak has affected at least three restaurants in Columbus so far this year.
Thursday’s vaccination clinic raised the total to more than 700 local restaurant patrons who have been immunized for hepatitis A this month. Three weeks ago, the health department vaccinated around 400 additional people at a similar clinic at FairOaks Mall after a female employee of Amazing Joe’s restaurant, who said on social media she was a server and bartender, was diagnosed with hepatitis A.
From Nov. 1, 2017 to May 1, 2019, health officials administered 2,273 hepatitis A vaccines in Bartholomew County, according to state figures.
County health officials said they have not uncovered a single source leading to the local cases.
“The first thing we do is look at who the people (the infected person) knows and where they’ve been,” Mayfield said. “And so far we can’t connect (any of the cases).”
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.
“The one major thing to do is to wash your hands,” Mayfield said. “We feel that’s 90 percent of it right there … It can happen any time people don’t wash their hands and go around grabbing door knobs and touching surfaces.”
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Contact the Bartholomew County Health Department at 812-379-1555 for more information about local hepatitis A infections.
To learn more about the state outbreak, visit in.gov/isdh/27791.htm.
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