Tennessee Hepatitis Outbreak Not Seen in Upper Cumberland

Following a report of a Hepatitis A outbreak in Nashville and the state of Tennessee, only two such cases have been reported in the Upper Cumberland.

According to the Tennessee Department of Health, 113 total Hepatitis A cases have been reported statewide since December 2017. Of those cases, two come from the Upper Cumberland in White County, compared to over 60 in the Nashville-Davidson metro area.

Dr. Kelly Moore, director of the Tennessee Department of Health’s Immunization Program, said a vaccine is typically given to children at a young age to help prevent contamination later in life.

“The great news about Hepatitis A is there is a fantastic vaccine that works extremely well that protects people once they’ve been vaccinated,” Moore said. “Even a single dose of vaccine can provide very high levels of protection.”

Moore said the Hepatitis A virus can be spread through bodily fluids or in the same fashion as E. coli and salmonella.

“It can be in contaminated food or water, so if people aren’t washing their hands well after they go to the bathroom, they might handle food that they serve to someone else,” Moore said. “People who live in the same household with someone who’s infected, sharing the bathroom if the bathroom is not kept clean, might be infected that way.”

Moore said some of the more extreme methods of contamination involve shared drug use between patients.

“People who are using drugs together can contract it because they may not be washing their hands when they’re sharing their drugs or drug paraphernalia,” Moore said. “That’s how it is spreading in those risk groups. Where we’re seeing these cases occur is in people who may share drugs with one another. If they share needles, they can spread it from the blood of one person to another.”

Moore said new state food safety regulations in places like restaurants help reduce the risk of spreading the disease.

“People who are handling food in restaurants are required to be wearing gloves now under our new food code regulations,” Moore said. “We really don’t see much in the way of risk for anyone eating in a restaurant or things like that.”

So far, Tennessee is one of 10 states to experience an outbreak of Hepatitis A in 2018, although California has demobilized its outbreak response after a decline in reports in April. Only Arkansas has fewer reported cases compared to Tennessee, with 63 reports since February 2018. Kentucky currently has the most cases with nearly 1,200 reported since August 2017.