HEPATITIS OUTBREAK Trumbull County reports its 1st case

The 12 infected workers didn't spread the virus, officials said.
STAFF/WIRE REPORTS
A Trumbull County man is among the growing number of people in Ohio either diagnosed or showing symptoms of hepatitis A linked to an outbreak in western Pennsylvania.
As of Tuesday, Ohio had 52 cases, up from 31 late last week, said Kristopher Weiss, spokesman for the Ohio Department of Health. He said the department is not aware of any Ohio fatalities.
More than 500 people, including three who died, have been infected, and thousands have been inoculated since the outbreak was reported in early November among people who ate at a Chi-Chi's Mexican restaurant. The virus attacks the liver and can be spread by an infected person who does not wash his hands before handling food or utensils. It can also be spread on uncooked foods, such as salads.
About 8,500 people received the shots because of the outbreak, linked to a Chi-Chi's at Beaver Valley Mall, about 45 miles southeast of Youngstown.
Weiss said Columbiana County has reported 48 cases, Mahoning County has two, and there's one each from Jefferson and Lake counties. The first Trumbull County case was reported Tuesday: a Cortland man in his mid-20s who was diagnosed after going to his physician with complaints of fever and nausea. He was never hospitalized and is considered to be on the road to recovery, said Selene Layton, nursing director for Trumbull County Health District.
Officials have confirmed that he ate at the Chi-Chi's at the Beaver Valley Mall during the period when many other people became sick, she said.
Weiss said Ohioans identified as possibly having hepatitis A are being questioned and their answers sent to the Pennsylvania Department of Health. He declined to identify any of the patients.
All 60 employees of the restaurant, which is closed until Jan. 2, will remain under medical supervision until each has been medically cleared, said Bill Zavertnik, chief operating officer at Louisville, Ky.-based Chi-Chi's.
Pennsylvania officials said Tuesday they've ruled out the possibility that any of the 12 workers infected with the virus spread it. They were exposed to the virus shortly before or about the same time as the customers, most of whom ate at the restaurant in early October, said Joel Hersch, the Pennsylvania Health Department's director of epidemiology. That means the virus hadn't progressed to the stage where the workers could have spread it to the customers, he said.
Similar strain
Instead, the first lab tests back on three of the 520 victims confirmed so far show an identical strain of hepatitis that is "very similar" to that found in those sickened in similar outbreaks in Tennessee and Georgia in September, said Hersch.
Both of those outbreaks were linked to green onions, Hersch said. The onions in Tennessee came from Mexico; officials are still trying to confirm the origin of those in the Georgia outbreak.
The Food and Drug Administration, based on health investigations into all the outbreaks warned consumers not to eat raw green onions, also called scallions.
The FDA is gathering data on where the Beaver County restaurant got its various food products, but won't be focusing solely on where the green onions came from until the state is convinced those vegetables are behind it, Hersch said. "We're not at the point of being able to say definitively that any food source is the culprit here," Hersch said.
At least 250 people have gotten hepatitis A since mid-September at more than a dozen Georgia restaurants, said Richard Quartarone, spokesman for the Georgia Division of Public Health. That virus has been traced to green onions from a distributor or wholesaler in California.
Officials with the Tennessee Department of Health say the more than 80 cases of hepatitis A they confirmed in August and September were traced to green onions from Mexico that were served at a restaurant near Knoxville, Tenn.
Efforts to trace the onions in either state back to a particular farm are ongoing.
Chi-Chi's has removed green onions from all its 100 restaurants as a precaution, and Taco Bell has told more than 6,000 American franchises to stop using green onions.
Not selling
The onions aren't high on shoppers' lists in western Pennsylvania.
"They offered them to me for $3 a box -- I turned them down," Steve Stanek, owner of Stan's Market in Pittsburgh. Over the weekend, Stanek said wholesalers got $20 for a box containing four dozen bunches of green onions, but as news of the FDA warning spread, the price dropped.
Industry experts say continued uncertainty about the outbreak's source could hurt the industry.
Shu Ling of Pittsburgh was shopping with her son for fresh fruit and confessed being "a little bit afraid; I hesitate. I prefer to eat fresh, but salads, I'm afraid I might not wash them enough to make them safe."
Another customer at Bill's Produce in The Strip in Pittsburgh, who identified herself only as Judy, 52, of Pittsburgh, said she ate green onions Monday.
"Let me say this, I wouldn't go somewhere and order them special -- but they already were in what I was eating," she said. "I prayed over them, though."
Bill Komora, who's owned the store for two years, says his green onions sales are off about 50 percent.