Fifty-nine of the 69 people confirmed to have contracted hepatitis A in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region have been discharged from hospital, a local health official said on Monday.

A canteen worker and 111 students in Fengshan Town No. 2 Middle School, a neighboring primary school and a nursery in Bobai County were identified as carriers of hepatitis A on Dec. 15 last year.

Xu Zhangneng, director of the county health bureau, said another 27 patients left hospital in the past week after 32 children were discharged from hospital on Dec. 31.

The 27 patients had recovered and were no longer infectious, but Xu said they would be quarantined and observed for another 15 days or so outside the hospital.

He said six others who were earlier suspected of contracting the disease have been confirmed as hepatitis A cases and are still being treated in hospital with four others.

He said the ten patients have basically recovered and are expected to leave the hospital this week.

The county health bureau has inoculated more than 6,000 people, mostly students, in a bid to prevent further outbreaks.

Xu said an initial investigation identified contaminated drinking water as the most probable cause of the outbreak.

A well in the junior middle school, the main supply of drinking water for students, may have been contaminated by a drainage ditch which was only five meters away.

Students also washed their faces and rinsed their mouths with water from nearby mountain springs. Tests have found that the colon bacillus in water from the well and the springs met safety standards.

The students' accommodation was rather poor with about 20 students to a dormitory. The school's canteen was operating without a health certificate.

Last August, an outbreak of hepatitis A affected 69 high school students in the same region. Earlier last month, two outbreaks struck 120 college and primary school students in eastern Jiangxi Province.

Hepatitis, or inflammation of the liver, is caused by infectious or toxic agents and characterized by jaundice, fever, liver enlargement, and abdominal pain.

(Xinhua News Agency January 9, 2007)