Hepatitis A infection was local, says health unit

The disease is often spread when an infected person handles already cooked or ready-to-eat foods with unclean bare hands or through food contact with dirty gloves.

“Unfortunately, even with a person who has really good hand washing, sometimes you slip, sometimes it may not get everything off,” said Burgess Hawkins, the health unit's manager of environmental health. “With hepatitis A, it only takes two or three virus particles to make you ill.”

Hawkins said the Casey's food handler with hepatitis A had not been travelling abroad before her infection – as is often the case when someone contracts the disease in Canada.
“Because we're dealing with one case, we don't have something we can trace it back to specifically,” he said.

The health unit said anyone who visited the Casey's restaurant, located at 1070 Kingsway Blvd., between Jan. 15, 2015 and Jan. 20, 2015, should get a hepatitis A vaccination as soon as possible.

People who were at the restaurant from Jan. 1 to Jan. 14 are also at risk of infection, but Burgess said a vaccine would not be effective for those individuals.

“The closer you are to whenever you get infected, the better that vaccination will work for you,” he said. “After about two weeks, it's not going to be as effective. Chances are it won't even work at all.”

Hepatitis A symptoms can begin 15 to 50 days after becoming infected.

They include fever, stomach pain, dark urine, nausea and vomiting, tiredness, loss of appetite, clay- or ash-coloured bowel movements, and jaundice – a yellowing of the skin and eyes.

Hepatitis A can also cause liver infection. Symptoms can last from a few days to several months, and can be serious for older people or those with chronic liver disease.

For these individuals, there is a greater risk of hospitalization and death, the health unit said.

Free hepatitis A vaccines are available at the health unit's main office, located at 1300 Paris St., from Friday, Jan. 30 to Monday, Feb. 2 – between the hours of 9 a.m. and 9 p.m.

Burgess said Casey's went beyond its responsibilities when the restaurant was informed an employee had hepatitis A.

“Although the health unit said it wasn’t necessary, Casey’s Sudbury voluntarily closed the restaurant on Jan. 29, 2015 and will re-open on Jan. 30, 2015 after an intense, third-party sanitization of all kitchen equipment and the entire restaurant facility,” the restaurant said in an email statement. “In addition, we have co-ordinated with public health nurses who held a vaccination clinic for employees on Jan. 29, 2015.

“At Casey’s, we hold all our restaurants to a high standard for health and food safety. This incident is isolated to this location and the dates specified.”