Hepatitis A - The virus at home and around the world
If you get hepatitis, it will probably be hepatitis A (HAV), the most common form of the disease. HAV used to be called infectious hepatitis, to distinguish it from hepatitis B, which was called serum hepatitis. Of course, this old name was misleading, since both forms of the disease are infectious. But they are transmitted in somewhat different ways.
The hepatitis A virus lives only in humans. Experimental animals can become infected with it, but no other animal except humans gets it naturally. Like other forms of the hepatitis virus, HAV is very stable-it can stay around for months at room temperature and then still infect someone who comes in contact with it. High temperatures (above 185 F) will kill it in a minute or less, and so will formalin and chlorine. Disinfecting surfaces with a 1: 100 solution of household bleach in tap water will inactivate HAV.
HAV is enterically transmitted, which is the medical way of saying that you get it by eating it (”enteric” means pertaining to the intestines). While HAV can be transmitted through contaminated blood, this form of transmission is rare. The most common way to get HAV is through infected fecal matter that comes in contact with the mouth. The virus is also transmitted within households and by sexual contact, and through contaminated food. One way the disease can be transmitted is by contact with the diapers of an infected child-since kids under six often have the disease without showing any symptoms, you wouldn’t ordinarily know that a child has it. There have been no cases of transmission by saliva, and waterborne outbreaks, while they do occur, are rare. Shellfish eaten raw from contaminated waters can be a source of the virus, and food eaten uncooked that has been washed in contaminated water can also be a route of transmission. Since the virus will not survive high temperatures, cooking food will eliminate any danger of contracting the illness, even if the food was contaminated.
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