The summer outbreak of the disease in the Quad-City region are all related to people who have visited a McDonald's restaurant at 400 W. 1st St., Milan, Ill., this summer.
The Hepatitis A vaccine or a drug called immune globulin will be provided to the patient's contacts, said Theresa Foes, spokesperson for the Rock Island County Health Dept.
On July 21 Marler Clark filed a class action Hepatitis lawsuit on behalf of those who had to get shots because of the McDonald's outbreak. The lawsuit seeks compensation for those who had to take time off work to wait in line for a shot, pay for a shot, or both. Marler Clark also has filed two illness lawsuits against McDonald's Inc. and Kevin Murphy, owner of the Milan restaurant.
The outbreak reportedly got started from at least one employee of the McDonald's in Milan. She was diagnosed with the virus in June and went back to work.
Confirmed cases of Hepatitis A from the Quad-City outbreak stretch from Woodford County, near Peoria, Ill., to Scott County, Iowa. Rock Island County has the most with 16, while four victims are from out-of-state, Illinois authorities said. Other Illinois counties with residents who have been diagnosed are Mercer, Henry and Warren.
The Rock Island County Health Department inoculated more than 5,324 area residents against the disease. All of them visited the Milan McDonald's in early or mid-July.
The Rock Island County Sheriff's Department completed an investigation Aug. 12 into the reporting of the disease. An investigator concluded that Trinity Regional Health System and Metropolitan Medical Laboratory, both of which were involved during the initial phases of the outbreak, failed to promptly report confirmed cases to the health department. A delay in acting on the belated reports then occurred because a health department employee was on vacation.
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