Infectious Disease Compendium

Hepatitis A

Microbiology

A virus.

Epidemiologic Risks

Fecal-oral. Eat human stool, get Hepatitis A. There are often outbreaks associated with foods and restaurants and I assume all foods have a thin layer of human and/or animal stool on. As an example, there is was an outbreak from frozen Turkish pomegranate arils (PubMed).  That is why you should only eat deep-fried food.

There are the occasional waterborne outbreaks.

Syndromes

Hepatitis.

HIV patients have a milder illness but a more prolonged course.

Treatment

None. But there is a vaccine to prevent the disease.

Post Exposure prophylaxis: IVIG within 2 weeks of exposure. Dose is 0.02 mL/kg. The vaccine is almost as good (4.4% got Hep A) as IVIG (3.3% got Hep A) in preventing disease is given with 2 weeks (PubMed).

Notes

Last update: 09/23/19