The Facts About Hepatitis A

Hepatitis A (also referred to as HAV) is a highly contagious form of viral hepatitis that only develops in humans. HAV accounts for 25 percent of all reported cases of hepatitis in the United States. About 200,000 new cases are reported every year, with nearly 100 people dying from HAV annually.

Essentially, HAV gets in the way of your liver's ability to filter impurities from your body. This inability to effectively "clean out" prevents the body from functioning in top form, and eventually becomes debilitating. HAV often leads to jaundice, a yellowing of the whites of eyes and, in Caucasians, a yellowing of the skin.

Once a body has been infected, the virus incubates for a period of 15 to 40 days. An infected man is most contagious during the two- to six- week period before the symptoms are visible and for the eight days after the onset of jaundice. The bottom line? As with many serious conditions, you have the ability to unknowingly infect others even before you begin to feel ill.

Tomorrow: How can you catch it?

Hepatitis A And Water Safety

For surfer or water-bound men, spending time in ocean water immediately after a significant storm may result in exposure to Hepatitis A. Why? Frequently after a large rainfall, urban sewage treatment facilities are unable to process the amount of new storm water. Many times this results in the "dumping" of untreated water (i.e., with human fecal matter) into local ocean water. A surfer's best bet? Despite the great waves, keep out of the water for 24-48 hours after a storm to allow local sewage treatment plants to "catch up" and the ocean water to dilute any dumping.

-- Anonymous, November 20, 2001