How is hepatitis A virus infection spread?
Typically, the virus is spread in households from person to person (horizontal transmission), and from contaminated food and water. Infected persons excrete the virus in their stools (poop). When people come in contact with infected stool and do not wash their hands properly with soap and water they can become infected. Children can spread the virus unsuspectingly from poor hand-washing. The virus can even survive on toys and be passed from child to child. The virus is easily spread in areas that have poor sanitation or poor personal hygiene. In the United States hepatitis A virus is relatively uncommon because the water and sewage treatment facilities in this country are effective in killing most hepatitis A virus that may enter the water supply. However, many countries in the world do not have effective facilities to kill the virus. As a result, many people cntract the infection. Persons traveling to areas in the world where there is a high prevalence of hepatitis A infection should
