Hepatitis A is a viral disease that primarily attacks the liver, and on the off chance that it gets serious as it can in the elderly and immune compromised people it can be deadly.





In the mid 1970s, about 10,000 individuals a year got it. By the mid-1980s, the number was half that.In 1996, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began suggesting vaccination, and from that point it was a quick, propping dive to only many cases a year.





The local outbreak begun a half year prior, and doctors say it could take a year or two for numbers to decrease.





“I think there’s an end in sight, it just might be farther off than we’d like,” said Dr. Lori Caloia, Medical Director of Louisville Metro Public Health & Wellness.





An update given Thursday by the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) raises the case count to 600. 395 individuals have been hospitalized and 19 have died since November 2016.





“If we look at a two-year mark, that’s another year and a half of this,” Caloia said.





“What caused (Kentucky) to declare the outbreak was when one of the (local) cases was linked to a San Diego case with the genotyping, it was close enough to their hepatitis A strain they had there,” Caloia said.





California governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency, trying to stop the spread of the infection. The declaration grants CDPH to assist the acquirement of the hepatitis A vaccine. It likewise enables EMTs to direct the vaccine, outside of a clinical setting, to high-hazard people – which incorporate the destitute and illegal medication users.





“Vaccinating people at risk of exposure is the most effective tool we have to prevent the spread of hepatitis A infection during an outbreak,” said CDPH director Dr. Karen Smith, in a written statement.





San Diego, Santa Cruz and Los Angeles counties have officially declared local outbreaks, yet CDPH said outbreak related cases have been affirmed in different parts of the state, also. The organization said it has effectively conveyed in excess of 80,000 doses of the hepatitis A vaccine.



