2 More Grocers Offer Workers Hepatitis Shots Safeway And Albertsons Join Campaign To Stem Outbreak
Safeway and Albertsons have decided to offer their employees free vaccinations for hepatitis A, joining three other major Inland Northwest grocers in fighting the virus.
Safeway is letting employees at its Spokane and Coeur d’Alene stores decide if they want the shots. Albertsons will spend at least $16,000 mandating inoculations for at least 200 food-handlers at stores in Spokane, Coeur d’Alene and Hayden Lake.
Vaccinations for other employees will be optional, said Albertsons spokesman Michael Read.
The decisions to inoculate come within four days of the announcement that a bakery worker at the U-City Rosauers contracted hepatitis A. Yoke’s Pac ‘N Save decided to vaccinate employees two weeks ago, while Rosauers and Tidyman’s decided in the past week. Both Read and Safeway spokeswoman Cherie Myers said the decisions to vaccinate were made reluctantly, because the best way to combat the virus is with proper personal hygiene and hand-washing.
“We’re offering it because our competitors are offering it,” Myers said. “If they (employees) want to get the shot, they can. But if they think a shot can stop them from washing their hands, they’re wrong.”
Pressure to vaccinate from employees, customers and competitors spurred the move, Read said.
“It’s gotten to the point where it’s not so much whether it’s truly the thing that’s needed, but it’s probably the thing to do,” Read said.
Since the beginning of the year, the Spokane Regional Health District has reported 102 cases of the virus in Spokane County. Five of those cases have involved food handlers, including the Rosauers bakery worker.
Despite the rush to protect people who may have been exposed in the past several months, the health district has not confirmed a case of an infected food-handler spreading the disease to a customer or co-worker.
On Thursday, the health district sent requests to Gov. Gary Locke’s office and to Spokane Sen. Jim West for $950,000 in emergency funds to combat the infection among schoolchildren and jail inmates.
A spokesman for Locke said the request came a day after his revised supplemental budget was completed. But the request may be in time for West, who is finishing the Senate’s version of the budget. The Legislature is expected to take action on the supplemental budget before the current session ends on March 12.
Hepatitis A generally has a two- to seven-week incubation period without any symptoms. Typical symptoms include fever, nausea, diarrhea, aches and pains, and jaundice. It is fatal in about 100 cases per year in this country, and is particularly virulent for the elderly and people with liver problems.
, DataTimes