Doctors recorded 1,776 cases of hepatitis A in the Czech Republic in the first nine months of this year, up from 636 in the whole of last year, according to the National Institute of Public Health (SZU). The number of cases this year is therefore the second highest since 1989, after the 2,083 cases recorded in 1996.
Almost 40% of the cases were recorded in Prague, where Mayor Bohuslav Svoboda (ODS) last week described the situation as a local epidemic. Public sanitary officers earlier said the disease was spreading among homeless people.
Twenty-one people have died from the disease this year, including five deaths in September. Last year, there were two deaths.
“Most of the deaths occurred in people with risky behaviors and other chronic liver disabilities,” said Katerina Fabianova, deputy head of the infectious diseases epidemiology department at the National Institute of Infectious Diseases. “It is in these people that viral hepatitis A can have a more severe to fatal course. The risk of a serious course and death increases with age and is higher in people with chronic liver disease or weakened immunity.”
The disease is linked to poor hygiene. “The biggest problem is among young children, in socially excluded communities, but also among homeless people, in hostels and so on,” chief sanitary officer Barbora Mackova told CTK in early September. In Prague, health officials are targeting homeless people and other at-risk groups, and the city has also stepped up the cleaning of vehicles and public transport stations because of the outbreak.
“Cases are reported in all age groups, from the youngest children to the elderly,” said Fabianova. The highest number of cases were among the 35-39 age group (204), followed by children aged 5-9 (163). Ten children under the age of one also fell ill.
Since March this year, the number of cases has increased every month, with 295 in August, 428 in September and 66 more in the first five days of October. Doctors regularly diagnosed more patients in the 1970s and late 1980s, with more than 32,000 in the record year of 1979.
The infection is spread mainly by dirty hands, so experts are appealing in particular for thorough washing.
They are also calling for vaccinations, which citizens currently have to pay themselves. According to Mackova, it would be preferable if the vaccine, which costs around CZK 1,700, were covered by public health insurance. Two doses are needed. Health insurance companies reimburse part of the cost, usually in the hundreds of crowns.
