What is Hepatitis A?

Hepatitis' means inflammation or swelling of the liver. It can be caused by chemicals or drugs, or by different kinds of viral infections. Hepatitis A virus is one type of hepatitis. Hepatitis A virus is a member of the Hepatovirus genus of the family Picornaviridae, and is a nonenveloped single-stranded RNA virus

Most adults with hepatitis A have symptoms, including fatigue, low appetite, stomach pain, nausea, and jaundice (yellow skin or eyes, dark urine, light-colored bowel movements). Most children less than 6 years of age do not have symptoms.

Symptoms of hepatitis usually show about four weeks after contact with the virus. Sometimes symptoms will appear between two and seven weeks.

Hepatitis is most often caused by a virus. It is a vaccine-preventable illness. In the United States, the most common types of viral hepatitis are hepatitis A, hepatitis B, and hepatitis C.

The hepatitis A virus is transmitted through ingestion of contaminated food and water or through direct contact with an infectious person.

The risk of hepatitis A infection is associated with a lack of safe water and poor sanitation and hygiene (such as contaminated and dirty hands).

Contamination of food with the hepatitis A virus can happen at any point: growing, harvesting, processing, handling, and even after cooking.

To reduce the risk of exposure to Hepatitis A:
*Wash hands thoroughly before eating
*Everyone should always wash their hands thoroughly before preparing food or drink
*Avoid eating foods that may be contaminated with Hepatitis A virus such as raw oysters and raw shellfish.
What is Hepatitis A?

Other Important Food Infections

Other Important of Food Infections
Tuberculosis (caused by Corynebacterium tuberculosis) and brucellosis (caused by Brucella melitensis and also known as undulant fever) are disease that in the past were transmitted through milk but have been controlled in recent years by heat pasteurization of milk and the testing of dairy herds, which eliminated infected animals.

The ingestion of foods may be involved in infectious hepatitis when infected food handlers who careless in their personal habits are involved in preparing and/or serving food to others, or when contaminated shellfish are eaten raw or without adequate cooking.

Taenia solium (a tapeworm that may infest pork), Taenia saginata (a tapeworm sometimes found in beef), and Diphyllobothrium latum (tapeworm sometimes found in fish) all cause illness in humans, but none of these pose any hazard when foods are thoroughly cooked. Small worms of the genus Anisakis may also infected fish and cause illness in humans when the infected fish is not properly cooked.

Yersinia enterocolitica is another psychotropic organism that has been the causative foodborne pathogen in raw and pasteurized milk, and contaminated water. It is destroyed by normal pasteurization. Yersiniosis usually results in enterocolitis, characterized by diarrhea, fever and severe abdominal pain in the lower right quadrant. This illness has been incorrectly diagnosed as appendicitis and has resulted in unnecessary appendectomies. The organism is widely distributed and outbreaks have been traced to a wide variety of foods, such as milk that had contaminated chocolate syrup added to it after pasteurization and tofu that was packed in contaminated spring water.
Other Important Food Infections

Food Borne illnesses

Food Borne illnesses
Since food is biological in nature and is capable of supplying consumers with nutrition, it is equally capable of supporting the growth of contaminating microorganisms. Two types of bacterial food borne disease are recognized: intoxications and infections.

Food borne bacterial intoxication is caused by the ingestion of food containing preformed bacterial toxin resulting from bacterial growth in food.

Food borne infection, on the other hand, is caused by the ingestion of food containing viable bacteria which then grow and establish themselves in host, resulting in illness. Some pathogens occur in normal, healthy animals and in some instances man. Certain microorganisms are thus ubiquitous in nature, occurring on soil and vegetation, in animal wastes, and on animal carcasses. Human skin surfaces and nasal passages harbor staphylococci. Water supply may contain pathogens when contaminated with fecal mater.

Coastal waters in particularly may also naturally harbor recognized as pathogen Vibrio vulnificus. It is thus obvious how difficult to prevent one or more pathogens from entering raw foods.

The most common symptoms associated with food borne illness is diarrhea. Depending on the pathogenicity of the organisms and the susceptibility or health status of the host, the illness may be acute and self-limiting, or it may lead to other serious chronic and life threatening sequellae. Food borne illnesses are more likely to be life-threatening for the immune compromised, the aged , and those individuals debilitated by underlying health problems such as cirrhosis, hepatitis, hemachromatosis. The increase number of sporadic outbreaks of hemorrhagic colitis and the sequella hemolytic uremic syndrome has caused health officials to speculate that Escherichia coli serotypes may be the source of many diarrheal disease of unknown etiology. Food borne disease however, may not necessarily manifest itself in diarrheal illness but may illicit other symptoms such as abdominal cramps or pseudo appendicitis. Although a number of unusual outbreaks related to processed foods have occurred on the past few years , the majority of food borne illnesses are attributable to improper handling , cooking , and syirage practices on food service operations pr in the home.
Food Borne illnesses