Orange : Hepatitis Vaccine to Be Offered Safety Employees

Firefighters and police officers, who are frequently exposed to victims of hepatitis B, will be offered free inoculations. Orange is the 11th city in the county to make a recently developed vaccine available for the protection of public safety employees.

Fire Chief Martel Thompson said the first shots will be given in January after a briefing about the new vaccine and its effectiveness. He said no cases of hepatitis have been recorded at the Orange Fire Department, but exposure to it is “almost a routine matter.”

Thompson said a dramatic increase in hepatitis cases in the last two years and a recent case involving a La Habra paramedic convinced him of the need for an inoculation program. Barbara Peck, supervising public health nurse in the county epidemiology department, said the number of hepatitis B victims has jumped from 306 in 1983 to 373 in 1984 and 594 in the first 10 months of 1985, with 333, 487 and 562 corresponding cases of hepatitis A, for which there is no vaccine.

La Habra Fire Chief Verl Griffin declined to identify the affected paramedic, who missed about six weeks before returning to duty.

The series of three inoculations, which will be administered on a voluntary basis, will cost $110 each for a total of about $22,220 if all the affected employees opt for it. Thompson said the vaccine has been given to an estimated 750,000 people nationwide with not one report of a transmittal of the disease.

Hepatitis causes jaundice, nausea, fever, loss of appetite and in severe cases can lead to cirrhosis of the liver and even death.