Hepatitis A
What is type A hepatitis?
Hepatitis is a Latin word that means inflammation of the liver. Hepatitis type A is caused by a virus called hepatitis A (HAV). Other types of infectious liver inflammation include hepatitis B and hepatitis C.
How is hepatitis type A?
De Varis ways. It can be spread through contaminated food, such as seafood (especially shellfish) or ice cream, and through contaminated water and beverages. The hepatitis A virus is present in the stool that eliminate infected, so can also be spread by direct contact with the feces, due to circumstances of poor hygiene.The contagiousness of the disease reaches its peak just before the patient had jaundice. Declines rapidly after that transmission capacity.
The type A hepatitis is very common in countries with poor sanitary conditions. Most affected are infected during travel to underdeveloped or direct contact with people infected with hepatitis A.
What are the symptoms of hepatitis type A?
Hepatitis A has an incubation period of 10 to 40 days. The incubation period is the time between acquiring the virus to the onset of symptoms of the disease.
Early symptoms include loss of appetite, nausea, muscle and joint pain and low fever. Interestingly, smokers who get this disease also appear unpleasant taste sensations when smoking as another possible symptom.
Jaundice appear later, when the skin and mucous membranes and sclera (whites of the eyes) are stained yellow, slightly colored stools and dark urine. When these latter symptoms are often the subject begin to feel better.
The illness usually lasts two to three weeks but can last up to two months. One in 10 patients suffering a relapse, usually less intense than the initial outbreak.
credit to: Dr. José María Ladero Quesada, Dr. Court Pedersen, Dr. Ove Schaffalitzky de Muckadell
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