Michigan Health departments have been put on high alert
because of the possibility of local restaurants serving strawberries that are
contaminated with hepatitis A virus. The International Company for Agricultural Products and Processing issued a recall on multiple lots of strawberries that
have been exported from Egypt because they have been found to contain hepatitis
a virus. The contaminated lots reached the states before this discovery and
multiple states have issued recalls due to having the strawberries distributed
in their area, including Michigan. Health officials in Michigan state that as
many as 90 food establishments may have been serving the contaminated strawberries,
and have released a list of these businesses. The CDC is advising post-exposure
prophylaxis (PEP) to those people that are not vaccinated and have eaten the
strawberries with the past two weeks or hepatitis A immunoglobin for those over
40 years old. If exposure to the strawberries happened over two weeks ago then
PEP will not help. The symptoms of the virus can vary from mild to severe and includes
fatigue, abdominal pain, yellow skin (jaundice), abnormal liver tests, dark
urine and pale stool.
-Vander Harris
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