Washing California streets with water containing bleach to combat the spread of Hepatitis A

Soumya Karlamangla reports in the LA Times,

Health officials in San Diego have scrambled for months to contain an outbreak of hepatitis A — vaccinating more than 19,000 people, putting up posters at bus stations and distributing hand sanitizer and cleansing wipes.

Despite those efforts, 16 people have died of the highly contagious virus in San Diego County and hundreds have become ill in what officials say is the nation’s second-largest outbreak of hepatitis A in decades.

Earlier this month, San Diego officials declared a public health emergency.

Though Los Angeles has so far escaped an outbreak, public health officials are hoping to head off a similar emergency. They say the virus could easily spread to Los Angeles because of its proximity to San Diego and the region’s large homeless population.

…In their efforts to get their outbreak under control, San Diego health officials have adopted a technique from L.A. that they hope will stop cases from spreading locally: washing the streets with water containing bleach.

“They didn’t have any outbreaks. We did. So we were like, ‘What’s going on there?’ ” said San Diego County public health officer Dr. Wilma Wooten. “That’s what we wanted to replicate here.”

Hepatitis A is transmitted through feces, either through close contact, often sexual, with an infected person or by eating contaminated foods. The virus can cause liver damage or even death, especially for people who already have other liver diseases, such as hepatitis B or C.

San Diego health officials first identified an outbreak in March, but traced the first case back to November.

Since November, 421 people in San Diego County have been infected with the virus, including the 16 who died, health officials said. Typically there are only two or three cases of hepatitis A per month in the county. The majority of those infected in the ongoing outbreak were either homeless or illicit-drug users, with cases concentrated in downtown San Diego and the cities of El Cajon, Santee and La Mesa, Wooten said.

…Workers have also visited homeless encampments and riverbeds to vaccinate thousands of people. Earlier this month they installed 40 hand-washing stations in areas of the city of San Diego with high homeless populations.

Unsanitary conditions make it more likely for hepatitis A to spread. A common way for the virus to be transmitted is when an infected person uses the bathroom and doesn’t wash their hands, experts say.

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