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)