AN OUTBREAK OF HEPATITIS-A IN A DAY-CARE-CENTER - IMMUNOPROPHYLAXIS WITH HUMAN-IMMUNOGLOBULIN

Background: An outbreak of seven cases of hepatitis A (HA) occurred in a day-care center. Five of the cases were children attending the cent er, one was a nurse and one was the mother of a child. It is probable that the first case with HA was a male child infected by an unknown so urce. Methods and Results: Human immunoglobulin (HIG) was administered to both children and staff at the center following which there were n o new cases of infection among in-center contacts. However, a new case of HA among household contacts developed 3 weeks following the treatm ent of in-center contacts. Conclusions: The outbreak may have been pre vented if the sibling (case 2) of the source case of infection (case 1 ) had been given HIG as soon as infection had been confirmed. Addition ally, the data suggest that HIG for prevention of HA should be given n ot only to children but also to their parents.