Town health officials combat Hep A threat
Published on July 7th, 2004
STONEHAM, MA -With a 72-hour deadline looming overhead, the town's Board of Health scrambled late last week to prevent Stoneham's first-ever Hepatitis A outbreak after receiving confirmation that a J.J. Grimsby's employee contracted the contagious viral disease.
According to Board of Health Chairman Mike Rolli and Bob Bracey, the town's Health Agent, J.J. Grimsby's owner Bob McAree first contacted Stoneham officials last Wednesday morning and reported that a waitress was experiencing symptoms of the disease.
Receiving official confirmation from hospital tests that the 18-year-old restaurant employee was indeed stricken with the virus, local and state officials then quickly calculated that at least 470 restaurant patrons had come into contact with the waitress while she last worked a double-shift on Saturday June 19.
"She worked a couple of days before and after that, but she only worked the Keno machine. And the Massachusetts Department of Epidemiology was of the opinion that if she just worked a few days with the Keno machine that it wasn't a risk," said Bracey of the focus on June 19.
Taking into account that the virus has a two-week incubation period, Board of Health officials then determined that they had less than 72-hours -- until last Saturday July 3 -- to respond to the incident. Holding clinics the following Thursday and Friday at Town Hall, the Board of Health administered 672 immune globulin shots to residents from Stoneham and surrounding communities.
"The response was absolutely tremendous. We had nurses helping us from Chelmsford, Arlington, and Woburn. The SOS went out and everybody pitched in. One thing everybody commented on was how well-coordinated it was," said Stoneham Board of Health nurse Margaret Drummey.
"The target range was 500 people and we had a total of 672 people coming through. Based on that, we're hoping we reached everybody who needed to be reached," Bracey added.
Because the Board of Health hasn't received any other reports from physicians about additional Hepatitis A infections, Rolli believes a widespread outbreak was successfully avoided.
"Everything we did was precautionary, no question about it. We haven't had anybody notify us about any cases other than this individual. If anyone else has contracted this infection, it should be known by now because physicians are required by law to notify us," said Rolli.
According to Rolli and Bracey, if a resident did eat at J.J Grimsby's on June 19 and didn't get a shot at last week's clinics, there's no need to panic. While the virus can result in dangerous liver damage because it causes the organ to swell, Board of Health officials remained confident that the time period for the virus to spread further had passed.
"If people ate there on the 19th and they're just finding out about this now, we would recommend that they see there primary care physician if they come down with any symptoms," Bracey advised. "This is the weakest of the three hepatitis strains, so if you have a strong immune system, your body fights it off."
According to Drummey, the classical signs of a Hepatitis A infection are yellowing of the eyes and clay-colored stool. Milder indicators of the virus are flu-like symptoms such as vomiting, fatigue, and upset stomach.
As to whether or not it is safe to continue to patronize J.J. Grimsby's, Board of Health officials claimed that a thorough investigation has determined that the employee who contracted the disease -- which is commonly spread through contaminated water, shellfish, and human feces -- was infected outside of the restaurant's operation.
Remarking that the food establishment has never been cited for violations consistent with the spread of food-borne illness during his 17-month tenure as Health Agent, Bracey claims the restaurant's cleanliness might have prevented a large-scale outbreak.
"The 17-months I've been here, I haven't received a single complaint. There wasn't any indication from my inspections that the restaurant was at risk of spreading any food-borne illness," said Bracey.
"The owner of the establishment was very cooperative and went beyond what was required [to respond to this incident]. It's too bad more people aren't like that," the Health Agent added.
Reflecting on the success of last week's clinic and response to the potential outbreak, Rolli said the Board of Health is indebted to many surrounding cities and towns, including Melrose, Arlington, Boston and Woburn. Rolli and Bracey also wanted to thank Stop and Shop, Deliworks and China Moon among other local businesses for their donations to local volunteers.
"We had less than 24-hours to get all this running and you can't really tell how good of an operation you run until you're under the gun. The whole community just pulled together and I think without that, it wouldn't have been as successful," Bracey said.
Yet despite the success of the preventative measures, Bracey warned that similar outbreaks will become more common if FY05 budget cuts to the Board of Health remain a reality.
"This was a wake-up call to the politicians in town, because somebody's going to get sick and die, and then everybody's going to start pointing fingers. My personal opinion is with the way the Selectmen slashed our budget, we're going to see more of this," Bracey cautioned.
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