ANDERSON – Madison County is being included in a statewide program to combat the potential spread of hepatitis A.
Stephanie Grimes, the administrator with the Madison County Health Department, said the Indiana State Department of Health (ISDH) did a survey of the at-risk population which includes people incarcerated at the jail, intravenous drug users and homeless people.
“The state has ramped up,” she said. “They want to vaccinate everyone in the jail within the next three months.”
Grimes said the local health department is developing a plan to vaccinate people in the county and must submit that plan to the state within the next 90 days.
“Homeless people will be the next priority group,” she said.
Madison County will receive 400 doses of the hepatitis A vaccine and more will be provided by the state once the plan is implemented.
Currently Madison County has one of the highest rates of hepatitis C infections in the state.
Dr. Stephen Wright, the Madison County health officer, said hepatitis A is transmitted by fecal or oral contamination and can be transmitted by food workers.
He said a person can develop jaundice, but hepatitis A is not fatal.
Wright said there are vaccinations for hepatitis A and hepatitis B, but not for hepatitis C.
Grimes said Madison County was included because of the high disease incident and high-risk population.
She said every dose must be accounted for by the state health department.
Inmates will have to sign a consent form to receive the vaccination.
Madison County Sheriff Scott Mellinger said all the employees at the jail will need to be vaccinated along with the inmates.
“I believe it will be beneficial,” he said. “The details for implementation are not known.
“We don’t have the resources so who will administer the vaccine?” Mellinger asked. “This is another typical mandate from the state with little support.”
Grimes said the Health Department will assist in administering the vaccine.
Megan Wade-Taxter with the Indiana State Department of Health said because of the hepatitis A outbreak that has been largely concentrated in southern Indiana, ISDH has been working to identify other counties that could be at high risk for cases and take preventive measures.
“Counties were evaluated based on risk factors that include the number of homeless individuals, the rate of injection drug use, proximity to counties or states experiencing outbreaks and the MSM (men who have sex with other men) population,” she said. “We also considered whether a county had a harm reduction or syringe services program.”
Wade-Taxter said a total of 28 counties were notified of the availability of hepatitis A vaccine based on those risk assessments.
“The jail was identified as the best place to start vaccinating because jails often house high numbers of people who fall into the high-risk groups,” she said. “If hepatitis A gets into a jail, it can quickly become an outbreak because of the close living conditions.”