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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

KY Takes Team Approach to Curb Hepatitis-A Outbreak

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Wednesday, July 24, 2019   

FRANKFORT, Ky. - The Kentucky Department of Public Health's "Strike Team" of nurses is offering hepatitis-A vaccines at county jails and other locations across the state. The effort comes as Kentucky's hepatitis-A outbreak has become the deadliest in the country, with a death of toll of 58.

In some rural communities, said Dr. Jeff Howard, Department of Public Health commissioner, more than 80% of patients with hepatitis-A also report substance abuse. He said reaching at-risk populations has been particularly challenging.

"And what we realized is that getting nursing staff from the health department to go to the jails was an obstacle because, over time, our health departments have become so lean, especially in the clinical realm, they often didn't have expendable staff," he said. "We developed this nurse vaccination team - 'Strike Team,' as it's been called - to be able to go out and fill that need throughout the community."

Since April, Howard said, the strike team has provided more than 2,000 hepatitis-A vaccinations across the Commonwealth. The outbreak began in Jefferson County in 2017. Since then, more than 4,000 cases in nearly all of Kentucky's counties have been reported.

Howard said people who are homeless also are more likely to contract hepatitis-A, so the Department of Public Health is working with local homeless shelters to offer the vaccine onsite.

"What we realized early on, as it pertains to the hepatitis-A outbreak, is that there were really two populations primarily at risk in Kentucky," he said. "One is those with substance abuse disorder, and two, those that are homeless. The primary driver appears to be substance-use disorder."

Hepatitis-A is a highly contagious liver infection that can be transmitted through person-to-person contact. More than $4 million in state and federal funding has been allocated to combat the outbreak.


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