Area jails combat hepatitis A

Area jailers are scrambling to prevent the spread of hepatitis A in their detention facilities.

Warren, Barren and Simpson county jailers have all reported incidents of hepatitis A within their inmate populations over the last few months.

Kentucky has seen the worst hepatitis A outbreak in the nation and with people packed into overcrowded county jails, jail medical staffs in this area are working to prevent the spread of this communicable illness among inmates and staff.

“Since the hepatitis outbreak … we have had a couple exposures from inmate who were either in our custody at the time they became ill or were here during the exposure period,” Warren County Jailer Stephen Harmon said. “We, over the two exposures that we had which were in April and May of this year, we’ve treated over 100 inmates, we’ve vaccinated in here … and also offered vaccines to our staff … .”

In addition to keeping their facilities clean, jailers are also educating inmates about the illness and isolating those who become sick.

“It’s an epidemic that seems to be going across the state right now,” Barren County Jailer Tracy Bellamy said.
“We have to quarantine them until we figure out if there are (sick) or are not,” he said. “We keep everything clean and promote the best personal hygiene we can amongst inmates. It’s definitely something we don’t want spreading through a jail.”

Simpson County Jailer Eric Vaughn said his deputies received vaccines Wednesday and Thursday.

“We’ve seen a few cases of hepatitis A. We took necessary precautions and vaccinated all of inmates in the affected areas including the deputies. We just had our round of vaccines Wednesday and Thursday,” Vaughn said.

Jail medical staff vaccinated 65 inmates last week.