Hepatitis A is spread through eating and drinking

Because the hepatitis A virus is spread through eating and drinking, it is easy to spread. Medical staff, tourists, nanny . are the most vulnerable. Symptoms start like flu and are easily overlooked.

Hepatitis A. Virus (Photo: Health & Life)

Hepatitis A has been known since the 2nd century BC. Hyppocrate has described this disease as ' infectious jaundice '. By 1947, the disease was named hepatitis A to distinguish it from hepatitis B, a blood-borne viral hepatitis.

Hepatitis A is an acute infectious disease, circulating around the world, especially in poor countries. In Southeast Asia, the disease is common in adolescents. A study in Indonesia showed that there are areas, the prevalence of hepatitis A virus (HAV) in children under 4 years of age up to 90-100%.

In Vietnam, also a study showed that HAV infection rate in children in Tan Chau (An Giang) is 97%. In hospitals, HAV causes about 30-50% of acute hepatitis cases.

Hepatitis A spreads directly from patients to healthy people through contaminated food and water. HAV virus is excreted in the feces at the end of the incubation period (lasting for weeks, until withdrawal). Therefore, unsanitary eating is a favorable condition for hepatitis A. Health workers, tourists, nanny . are high-risk subjects. Food and water contamination is the risk of large and small epidemics today.

Hepatitis A can also be transmitted through blood transfusions, but the ability to spread it by this method is very rare.

Expression of the disease

Acute hepatitis : After an incubation period, an average of 30 days, the disease starts suddenly with flu-like signs: fever, cough, muscle aches, headache, fatigue, loss of appetite, walking Little urine, dark urine. It is because of this sign that many people are subjective, saying that only cold flu is common. If not detected early, the disease will worsen, leading to dangerous complications.

After 5-7 days with the above symptoms, the patient had no fever but continued fatigue and anorexia. Signs of jaundice, jaundice appear to increase gradually and usually last 2-4 weeks. Acute hepatitis A usually resolves, the patient urinates a lot and runs out of jaundice and yellow eyes.

But there are about 2% of severe cases, which can lead to liver failure, liver coma, death.

Acute hepatitis : The disease develops quickly in a week with high fever, yellow eyes, fatigue, small atrophic liver. Hepatic coma is often the last manifestation of death.

Prolonged hepatitis : This phenomenon is very rare. Manifestations are chronic cholestasis, sometimes occurs 2-3 months, but rarely leave severe consequences. Do not record chronic inflammation or lifelong HAV status.

Treatment and prevention

Most acute hepatitis A cases are mild. The main method of treatment is resting, should not continue learning and labor during the illness.

However, patients should not treat themselves at home but need to go to the hospital for examination and testing to determine the disease. Most patients need inpatient treatment at the hospital.

Patients need to be well cared for, eat easily digestible foods, do not use a lot of fat, sugar . avoid the liver to work hard.

In the past, when there was no specific vaccine, people used prophylactic therapy with immunoglobulin-Ig, but with low efficacy and short immunity (about 1 week). Isolation of patients, eating and hygiene is also a preventive measure but not really specific, preventing pandemics from occurring.

Currently, hepatitis A vaccine (a live inactivated virus, reduced virulence) has been used worldwide and in Vietnam, with immunity and high safety.

Dr. Cao Van Vien