Saturday, November 29, 2003
The cases have been sent to the CDC in Atlanta for further analysis.
PITTSBURGH (AP) -- The Allegheny County Health Department is screening two people with hepatitis A to determine if either was the first so-called "secondary" case linked to a green onion-borne outbreak at a Mexican restaurant.
All 615 confirmed cases linked to the Chi-Chi's restaurant at the Beaver Valley Mall, about 45 miles southeast of Youngstown, are primary cases -- people who got sick by eating or working at the restaurant, the state Health Department said. Three of those have died.
But Allegheny County officials are trying to determine if a woman might have caught the disease from someone infected in the outbreak -- the definition of a "secondary" case, Allegheny County Health Department spokesman Guillermo Cole said Tuesday.
The woman recently tested positive for hepatitis A during a routine pre-surgery screening in Pittsburgh, Cole said.
"We're looking into this because she is kind of remotely connected to the Chi-Chi's outbreak," Cole said. The woman and another person infected at Chi-Chi's took an art class together, and both dipped their paint brushes in the same glass to rinse them off, so there's a chance -- albeit slight -- that the virus was passed that way.
Hepatitis A is passed when someone eats microscopic fecal particles of an infected person. So, if someone with hepatitis A didn't wash their hands after using the bathroom, it's possible the virus could be transmitted if they touched an object or surface and a second person who touched it then put their hands in their mouth, Cole said.
"That really is a very, very low probability for transmission of the virus to her, but, theoretically, it's possible," Cole said.
Second case
A second person, a 36-year-old man from Pittsburgh North Hills suburbs, also has hepatitis A. Cole said there's no known link between him and any of the Chi-Chi's victims.
But to be sure, any cases of hepatitis A in Allegheny County discovered in the next 60 days are being sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention where they can be compared to the hepatitis A strain found in those who ate at the Chi-Chi's. The 60-day screening is in place because that's the longest it can take hepatitis A to incubate, Cole said.
State Health Department spokesman Richard McGarvey said Tuesday he knows of no other possible secondary cases in the state.
"With 615 cases, there's probably going to be some cases out there, but we don't have any confirmed yet," McGarvey said.
Allegheny County typically has several dozen hepatitis A cases each year. Last year there were 55; this year, there were 24 through September, before the Chi-Chi's outbreak in October, Cole said.
Onion investigaton
Also Tuesday, the Food and Drug Administration said it hasn't determined how the onions, which have been traced back to four Mexican firms, were contaminated. An FDA team is being assembled, which will travel to Mexico on Sunday to assist in that investigation, said John Guzewich, director of emergency coordination and response for the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.
The four firms in question are located in the Mexican state of Baja, California -- but they're as far as 100 miles from one another, which is puzzling authorities looking for a common cause, assuming there is one, Guzewich said.
Screening consultant
Also Tuesday, a judge in Phoenix, Ariz., approved Chi-Chi's request to spend $500,000 to hire a screening consultant and to pay some expenses of those infected.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Charles G. Case II said Chi-Chi's can pay out-of-pocket expenses of up to $3,000 to any infected person who contacts the Louisville, Ky.-based chain with a claim. The money would pay for insurance deductibles and lost wages and is not meant to settle any legal claims they may have.