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Hepatitis A confirmed in Erie County restaurant employee

Officials advising anyone who ate at Ang's Family Restaurant on Clinton St. in Buffalo between September 24-27 get vaccinated at a clinic set for Wednesday.

BUFFALO, N.Y. — The Erie County Health Department says a new case of the hepatitis A virus has been confirmed in a local restaurant worker.

Officials are advising anyone who ate at Ang's Restaurant, also known as Ang's Lunch Wagon, located at 1501 Clinton St. in Buffalo between Tuesday, September 24 through Friday, September 27, get vaccinated.

A clinic will be held at the restaurant on Wednesday from 7:30 -10 A.M.

The vaccine will prevent potentially exposed patrons who ate or drank there on those dates from developing a hepatitis A infection.

In addition, the Health Department is advising anyone who ate or drank at Ang's between Thursday, September 12 and Monday, September 23 to monitor their health for symptoms of hepatitis A. Those include fever, fatigue, loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, dark urine, clay-colored stools, joint pain and jaundice.They say a post-exposure vaccine would not be effective for those people at this point.

Management of the restaurant is cooperating with the Health Department to provide vaccine to its unvaccinated employees. Environmental Health sanitarians will inspect the restaurant Tuesday and will conduct additional inspections in the weeks to come.

"This is the third case of hepatitis A in a restaurant worker that our department has handled this year," said Erie County Health Commissioner Dr. Gale Burstein. "We coordinated this vaccination clinic with the cooperation of the restaurant owner and hope that their patrons are able to receive this safe and effective vaccine at our clinic Wednesday morning."

Hepatitis A is transmitted person-to-person through the fecal-oral route or consumption of contaminated food or water. It spreads when a person unknowingly ingests the virus from food or drinks or other objects that are contaminated by small, undetected amounts of stool from an infected person. 

It can cause illness ranging from no symptoms at all, to a mild illness lasting a few weeks, to a sever illness lasting several months. 

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