Fact sheets

Hepatitis A web page

Hepatitis A fact sheet  (PDF 317KB)

Public Health action

• OD 0228/09 Hepatitis A: National Guidelines for Public Health Unit

• Australian Immunisation Handbook

• OP 0146/08 Guidelines for the provision of hepatitis A And B vaccine to adults in Western Australia at risk of acquiring these infections by sexual transmission and injecting drug use

• Guidelines for Managing Sexually Transmitted Infections. A guide for primary health care providers

• Communicable Disease Guidelines, for teachers, child care workers, local government authorities and medical practitioners. Department of Health, Western Australia

• OD 0103/08 Public Health Intervention for Sporadic Enteric Notifications

• OD 0303/10 Guidelines for exclusion of people with enteric infections and their contacts from work, school and child-care settings
  

Notifiable disease data and reports

• Up-to-date Hepatitis A notification data

• General infectious disease reports

Additional sources of information

• Control of Communicable Diseases Manual  

Exclusion

Exclude from child care, work, school and food handling for at least one week after onset of jaundice or two weeks after onset of symptoms (if not jaundiced).

Enteric precautions for hospitalised or institutionalised patients.

Case definition

 
Both confirmed cases and probable cases should be notified.

Confirmed case

A confirmed case requires laboratory definitive evidence only.

Laboratory definitive evidence

1. Detection of anti-hepatitis A IgM, in the absence of recent vaccination
OR

2. Detection of hepatitis A virus by nucleic acid testing.

Probable case

A probable case requires clinical evidence AND epidemiological evidence.

Clinical evidence

Clinical hepatitis (jaundice and/or bilirubin in urine) without a noninfectious cause.

Epidemiological evidence

1. Contact between two people involving a plausible mode of transmission at a time when:

a. one of them is likely to be infectious (from two weeks before the onset of jaundice to a week after onset of jaundice)
AND

b. the other has an illness that starts within 15 to 50 (average 28 - 30) days after this contact
AND

2. At least one case in the chain of epidemiologically linked cases (which may involve many cases) is laboratory confirmed.