JOPLIN, Mo. – There have been two confirmed cases of Hepatitis A at Joplin restaurants in two weeks. But, that’s not the only area of concern for spread of the virus.
Interim City Manager and former Health Department Director Dan Pekarek says the populations at highest risk are the homeless, IV drug users, and men having sex with other men. “It doesn’t mean that every case is going to fit that criteria, but those are probably the leading groups of individuals across the country where the risk is higher.”
Pekarek says there’s no indication that the two restaurant cases were from the high-risk population, as there are other ways for Hepatitis A to be spread. The health department began taking pro-active steps in the city to try and slow the spread of Hepatitis A among the high risk populations. “We’ve been going into shelters, literally going into neighborhoods where we know there’s high concentrations of homeless populations, or even high concentrations we’re told that maybe iv drug use is going on we’re going into those neighborhoods and giving those shots to those individuals if they’re willing to take it.”
That includes Souls Harbor, where the director, Dianna Gurley, tells us they’ve been working with the health department on this for awhile now. “Actually, we started working with the health department a year ago, when they saw it was coming this way, it hadn’t entered the area yet but it was coming this way, they went ahead and contacted us so we could go ahead and start getting people shots.”
Friday afternoon, Gurley and her staff got together for a meeting to keep up on the latest information from the health department and the CDC about Hepatitis A and the Coronavirus. “We just need to make sure that everybody knows what the protocol is for if someone is sick, or just the preventative measures that we need to take in order to keep that down and not be able to spread it.”
Gurley says in addition to the health department providing shots to their clients, they also provided hepatitis a shots for all the staff and volunteers at the facility.
Health department officials say they’re hopeful the shelters can spread the word about the vaccinations to encourage those staying on the streets to come in for the shot.
