Teachers, Kids Line Up For Hepatitis Shots Clinics Set Up At Schools To Protect Against Virus From Tainted Berry Dessert

Hundreds of children, along with a few teachers and cafeteria workers, dropped their pants and winced Thursday as they took a shot to ward off the hepatitis A virus at a trio of makeshift school inoculation clinics.

Though health officials were recommending that only those who ate a potentially tainted strawberry/blueberry treat receive the immune serum globulin, some parents were not taking any chances. At Ramona Elementary School in Los Angeles, one of three schools where county and school nurses joined forces to provide 500 inoculations, parent Brenda Pineda said it didn’t matter what her 11-year-old daughter told her.

“She doesn’t like shots, so she will say no, she did not eat it,” said Pineda as daughter Joanna shifted from foot to foot while waiting in the school auditorium. “I’d rather her be safe.”

Today, six more clinics will open, followed by eight more next week. The shots can cost up to $18 apiece. The corporate parent of the company that processed the offending strawberries has offered to pay for all shots given in Los Angeles.

The hepatitis scare broke Tuesday when authorities announced that 9,000 children and others in Los Angeles had eaten a dessert made from the same batch of strawberries implicated in a hepatitis outbreak in Michigan, where more than 175 cases have been reported. So far, no cases have been reported here, but the usual two-week period between exposure and the onset of symptoms is only half over.

In other developments Thursday:

About 1,000 children in Georgia also received shots Thursday. In Michigan, health officials were trying to track down 1,400 people who attended a Special Olympics event March 22 which featured strawberry shortcake made with the suspect berries.

The federal Food and Drug Administration on Thursday offered a few more details about the possibility that strawberries from Andrew & Williamson Sales Co., the San Diego food processor that sliced, washed and froze the berries a year ago, had also found their way into some commercial products.

Frozen strawberries from the firm were apparently used in jams, jellies, pies and frozen daiquiri mix, said Jim O’Hara, an FDA spokesman. In some cases, such products have been located and recalled as part of Andrew & Williamson’s voluntary recall of the berries.

“In all likelihood, these products would have been consumed some time ago,” O’Hara said.

Officials reiterated that hepatitis A is a relatively mild form of the virus, particularly with children.

Los Angeles County disease control director Shirley L. Fannin said the virus is reported only about 10 percent of the time it is contracted.