Hepatitis At College

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31169, 20 September 1966, Page 1

Hepatitis At College

Seven students at Lincoln College have contracted infective hepatitis, according to the Christchurch district Medical Officer of Health (Dr. L. F. Jepson). They are members of a party of 36 from the college who recently completed a field trip through the North and South Islands.

“Two of the boys have been sent home, and five are in isolation in the sick bay at Lincoln,” said Dr. Jepson. “The rest of the boys in the party and staff who were with them have been innoculated by local doctors as a preventive measure,” he said. Injections of gammaglobulin were given yesterday Dr. Jepson said. “We don’t say it is a definite guarantee against the disease, but it is the best means we have of prevention.”

Dr. Jepson said there was no reason to think hepatitis would spread throughout the college. The boys had first become ill with the disease on Friday, he said. The origin of their infection was not known, “but it is certain they collected it down south.” The infection could be

spread from hand to mouth, through hand-shaking, food and so on, and it could also be transferred through people drinking infected water. The Health Department was continuing its investigations as to the cause of the outbreak, Dr. Jepson said. For the week ended Saturday, two infective hepatitis

cases were notified to the department. One was a woman over 60 and the other a teenage youth in the city. In the whole of the Christchurch health district, from the Clarence river to the Rakaia, 136 cases of infective hepatitis were notified last year, and 66 have been notified to date this year.