About 400 doses of hepatitis A vaccines were administered by the Bartholomew County Health Department at a clinic Monday.
No new recent cases of the disease have been reported to the health department, administrator Collis Mayfield said Wednesday.
Free vaccines were offered to customers of Amazing Joe’s restaurant, 2607 Central Ave., after a female employee who worked as a server and bartender was diagnosed with hepatitis A late last month.
Many of the restaurant’s customers were vaccinated during a six-hour clinic Monday at FairOaks Mall, and received the vaccination at no cost.
Hepatitis A is a highly-contagious liver infection caused by a virus that can range from a mild illness lasting a few weeks to a severe illness lasting a few months, according to the Indiana State Department of Health.
The disease can bring a wide variety of symptoms, which range from fatigue and loss of appetite to abdominal pain and fever, that usually appear two to six weeks after someone is infected.
The restaurant closed May 1 to have all surfaces in the facility sanitized by employees before the eatery reopened the next day.
From Jan. 1 through May 3, there were 18 confirmed cases of hepatitis A in Bartholomew County, while 1,730 local residents were vaccinated through both public and private sources during the same period, according to the ISDH website.
Although state health officials are concerned about a recent outbreak of measles in other sections of the country, Mayfield says there has only been one confirmed case of measles in Indiana at this time.
Meanwhile, the Bartholomew County Health Department is expected to receive $68,000 in federal funds to promote immunizations. Used mostly for both advertising and education purposes, the federal grant has been received annually for the past four years, Mayfield said.
