Tag Archives: louisville

Vaccines work: Will low-cost shots for restaurant workers tame the hepatitis A outbreak in Kentucky?

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Darla Carter of Insider Louisville reports the city is taking aim at the hepatitis A outbreak by offering low-cost vaccination shots to food-service and hospitality industry workers such as restaurant employees.

The Louisville Metro Department of Public Health and Wellness and the University of Louisville Global Health Center have teamed up to provide the service at a discounted price of $25 per shot, with the restaurant or business paying the fee.

“It’s a significant discount,” said health department spokesman Dave Langdon, noting that the typical rate is more like $65 to $100 a dose.

Against the Grain, a Louisville brewery and restaurant, is among the businesses that have stepped up to get some workers vaccinated.

“We care for our employees and want them to be well and we care for our customers and want them to be well,” co-owner Adam Watson said. ” … Any place that handles food, it’s probably a wise decision to try and get this done.”

The discounted shots are part of an effort to stop an outbreak that has led to nearly 200 cases of acute hepatitis A in the Louisville area, according to the health department. At least one person has died.

Locally, the highly contagious liver infection mainly has stricken the homeless and people who use drugs. It’s usually spread when a person unknowingly ingests the virus from objects, food or drinks contaminated with small amounts of stool from an infected person, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The health department and its partners have given shots to thousands of people at high risk, such as the homeless, and is urging restaurants and other food handlers to practice good sanitation and hygiene as the Kentucky Derby approaches in May.

Also, by taking advantage of the discounted shots, businesses “certainly would be helping to prevent the spread of hepatitis A throughout the community,” Langdon said. “Also, they would be protecting themselves against the potential bad publicity and loss of business that might come with having one of their workers identified with being infected with hepatitis A.”

Grades come to Louisville food trucks; owners applaud

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Max Balliet’s Holey Moley food truck has been inspected six times this year, passing the health department review without fail. Still, he hears the uninformed slights and innuendo — food trucks are dirty, messy, fly-by-night grease pits, potential salmonella breeders on wheels.

That’s why nobody is happier than Balliet that Louisville is requiring the city’s 49 registered food truck vendors to post health grades in their rest.inspec.grade.louisvillewindows.

“Being able to display our score is a good thing,” he said Monday. “Right now there’s no way for us to prove we’ve been inspected at all.”

Louisville’s Department of Public Health and Wellness has always required food trucks to follow the same health regulations as restaurants. But, until now, they haven’t had to participate in the city’s ABC Food Placard Program, the system that displays brightly colored letter grades based on cleanliness and food handling.

Food truck say the visible grades will help their credibility. “It’s going to be way better for business, for sure,” said Robb Ross, owner of French Indo-Canada Food Truck. Customers such as Donnie Guinn, who bought lunch Monday from Urban Kitchen at Bardstown Road and Midland Avenue, predicted the new rule would improve food quality in Louisville. “I think it’s a good thing, man,” he said. Skip Brewer agreed, saying he liked the idea of being able to see a score in the window the moment he walked up to order his food. “If every other place in Louisville has to have it, so should the food trucks.”