Philly Declares Public Health Emergency For Hepatitis A Outbreak

Philadelphia has declared a public health emergency as hepatitis A cases continue to skyrocket. A major source of the problem is human feces on city streets.

The outbreak is centered in the Kensington area, and city leaders say it’s mostly impacting the homeless community and drug users. But they say we all could be at risk.

“I know they’re trying to help and down in Kensington, we don’t get help down here,” Kensington resident Niyad Vaughn said.

Help is on the way to deal with the hepatitis A outbreak. It began with the health department declaring a public emergency Thursday.

“The emergency declaration is to call the healthcare community to partner with us rapidly, to administer vaccines to as many of these folks as we can, as soon as we can, to quell this outbreak,” Dr. Steven Alles, with the Philadelphia Department of Health, said.

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