An Epidemic of Infectious Hepatitis in a General Hospital: Probable Transmission by Contaminated Orange Juice

An epidemic of infectious hepatitis occurred at the Jewish Hospital of St. Louis in late July and early August, 1962. There were 24 cases of hepatitis in the outbreak, most of which were in house officers and nurses. To minimize the spread of disease, an intensive search for subclinical hepatitis was made among hospital personnel, and 1,345 patients and employees were given gamma globulin. No cases of subclinical hepatitis were found, and the disease did not appear among those treated with immune globulin. An investigation of the epidemic revealed that the disease was probably transmitted by contaminated orange juice served in the hospital cafeteria.