Editorial: Hepatitis A outbreak must stay priority for San Diego city, county officials

The latest weekly update on San Diego’s hepatitis A outbreak shows somewhat increased activity.

By The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board

Nov. 29, 2017 5 PM PT

Top city and county officials such as San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer and the entire county Board of Supervisors acted inexcusably slowly to address the region’s deadly hepatitis A outbreak. But to their credit, once media attention made them take the situation seriously, they moved quickly to install hand-washing stations and more bathrooms downtown and to vaccinate the most at-risk populations.

Now San Diego expects to open the first of three massive tents to provide homeless residents — the population most plagued by the disease — shelter and services on Friday. And on Tuesday, county supervisors unanimously voted to continue a local health emergency that they first declared Sept. 1, a sign the outbreak is slowing but the response isn’t.

Dr. Eric McDonald, chief of the county’s Epidemiology and Immunization Services Branch, is still tallying one or two suspected cases each day. That’s far fewer than the 28 cases referred to his department during the first full week in September at the apparent peak of the outbreak but far more than the two per month the county reported before the crisis. Since it began, the county has tallied 561 confirmed and probable cases, 378 hospitalizations and 20 fatalities, a death toll that hasn’t risen in four weeks.

The worst may be behind us, but there are still risky days ahead. San Diego County officials who have vaccinated 105,482 people must not let up.

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San Diego steps up homeless response, blunders on housing

San Diego homeless tents start off on right foot at last minute

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