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Lane County Public Health Boosts Efforts To Prevent Hepatitis A

Web MD
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Oregon health officials resolve to prevent the spread of a highly contagious disease—-Hepatitis A.  County health departments are stocking up on vaccines with strategies to reach the most vulnerable populations.

Hepatitis A spreads through dirty food and water and close contact with infected people. Outbreaks tend to be foodborne or involve international travelers. In some parts of the U.S., rates of the disease have reached unprecedented levels… especially among the homeless.  

Dr. Patrick Luedtke is Senior Public Health Officer in Lane County. He says they’ve requested additional Hepatitis A vaccines from the Oregon Health Authority to reach at-risk groups.

“They might be homeless, they might have a substance abuse issue, they might be intermittently incarcerated. So we’re focusing on those populations to make sure that Lane County and Oregon in general doesn’t see an outbreak with thousands of cases. That’s a frightening idea.”

Public health nurses are administering the two-dose Hepatitis A vaccine at the Lane County jail and various homeless tent camps. Going into the new year, Dr. Luedtke says Oregon counties are seeing nothing above normal levels of Hepatitis-A cases and they want to keep it that way.

Tiffany joined the KLCC News team in 2007. She studied journalism at the University of Missouri-Columbia and has worked in a variety of media including television and daily print news. For KLCC, Tiffany reports on health care, social justice and local/regional news. She has won awards from Oregon Associated Press, PRNDI, and Education Writers Association.
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