- Wan-Chin Chen1, Po-Hsun Chiang2, Yu-Hsin Liao3, Lin-Ching Huang1, Ying-Jung Hsieh4, Chu-Ming Chiu4, Yi-Chun Lo5, Chin-Hui Yang4, Jyh-Yuan Yang3
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View Affiliations Hide AffiliationsAffiliations: 1 Office of Preventive Medicine, Centers for Disease Control, Ministry of Health and Welfare, Taipei City, Taiwan 2 PoloWang Bio. Inc, New Taipei City, Taiwan 3 Center for Diagnostics and Vaccine Development, Centers for Disease Control, Ministry of Health and Welfare, Taipei City, Taiwan 4 Division of Acute Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control, Ministry of Health and Welfare, Taipei City, Taiwan 5 Office of Deputy Director-General, Centers for Disease Control, Ministry of Health and Welfare, Taipei City, TaiwanJyh-Yuan Yangjyyang cdc.gov.tw
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Citation style for this article: Chen Wan-Chin, Chiang Po-Hsun, Liao Yu-Hsin, Huang Lin-Ching, Hsieh Ying-Jung, Chiu Chu-Ming, Lo Yi-Chun, Yang Chin-Hui, Yang Jyh-Yuan. Outbreak of hepatitis A virus infection in Taiwan, June 2015 to September 2017. Euro Surveill. 2019;24(14):pii=1800133. https://doi.org/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2019.24.14.1800133 Received: 14 Mar 2018; Accepted: 17 Sep 2018
Outbreak of hepatitis A virus infection in Taiwan, June 2015 to September 2017
Abstract
The Taiwan Centers for Disease Control (CDC) were notified of increasing acute hepatitis A (AHA) in June 2015. Serum and/or stool from AHA patients and sewage samples were tested for hepatitis A virus (HAV). We defined outbreak cases as AHA patients with illness onset after June 2015 and with an HAV sequence less than 0.5% different from that of the TA-15 outbreak strain. We analysed characteristics and food exposures between outbreak and non-outbreak cases between January 2014 (start of enhanced surveillance) and February 2016. From June 2015 to September 2017, there were 1,563 AHA patients with a median age of 31 years (interquartile range (IQR): 26–38); the male-to-female ratio was 8.8 and 585 (37%) had human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. TA-15 was detected in 82% (852/1,033) of AHA patients, and 14% (74/540) of sewage samples tested since July 2015. Infection with the TA-15 strain was associated with having HIV, sexually transmitted infections (STI), recent oral-anal sex and men who have sex with men (MSM). The Taiwan CDC implemented an HAV vaccine campaign starting from October 2016 where 62% (15,487/24,879) of people at risk were vaccinated against HAV. We recommend HAV vaccination for at-risk populations and continuous surveillance to monitor control measures.

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