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Does food poisoning cause hepatitis A?

Does food poisoning cause hepatitis A?

  • I heard that food poisoning occurred in foreign countries from frozen fruits contaminated by hepatitis-A virus

In Japan, we have experienced food poisoning cases due to hepatitis-A virus from bivalve shellfish.
On the other hand, there have been reports in some overseas countries of mass infection cases caused by frozen fruits, including: berries such as raspberry and strawberry, and vegetables, in addition to infections from bivalve shellfish.
Because hepatitis A has a long incubation period of between 2-7 weeks, it is difficult to identify the causing factor even in cases where food poisoning is suspected, and thus causes are often reported as unknown in many cases.



More information

  • What is hepatitis A?
    Hepatitis A is an infectious disease that is caused by the hepatitis-A virus (HAV) and characterized by transient acute hepatitis symptoms as the major symptoms. In most cases, the symptoms appear suddenly, starting with a fever of 38℃ or higher. Ordinarily, more than half patients experience general malaise, anorexia, nausea and vomiting, jaundice, hepatomegaly, and the like.
  • How to prevent
    Sufficiently heating food ingredients, sufficiently washing hands before meals, and vaccination.

  • Survey of actual food contamination
    Regarding bivalves, contamination of 1% or so was recognized through investigation into foods distributed nationwide, but the amount of contamination was extremely low.
    In view of reports of overseas cases of food poisoning via frozen fruits (berries, etc.), the Tokyo Metropolitan Government did not detect any hepatitis-A virus contamination from an investigation of more than 200 samples of imported frozen berries through FY 2014 to FY 2015.

Bureau of Public Health, Tokyo Metropolitan Government
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