After at least four people and one former employee tested positive for Hepatitis A, owners of Doino’s Pizzeria Bar and Grille want to make a big change.

The restaurant will now require all employees to be vaccinated against the illness and hope to see the state make such vaccinations mandatory.

Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz says an employee who handled food at the restaurant tested positive for Hepatitis A, an infection of the liver, caused primarily from eating contaminated food.

County Health Commissioner Gale Burstein says the foursome also ate at other restaurants during the time they were infected. 

"I can never say it's 100% positive that they were infected from eating at Doino's, however, we do know that those cases were associated with Doino’s because the first case, the index case was a cook at Doino's,” she said.

One of the restaurant’s co-owners said no one else working at the establishment has shown signs of the illness, aside from the initial patient. That person no longer works at the restaurant.

Patrons who ate at the restaurant between August 20 and September 3 are being advised to monitor their health.

Burstein said Hep A is fairly contagious, yet the state does not require people working in food service to get vaccinated. 

She also noted an uptick in cases this year: there have been 21 reported illnesses in 2018, compared with four in 2017, two in 2016 and three in 2015.

Earlier this year, there were confirmed cases of Hepatitis A originating at Al-E-Oops in Lancaster and the Brookdale Williamsville assisted living facility, in addition to a second outbreak among homeless people who received services at the Buffalo City Mission.

Healthcare workers have only limited access to a Hepatitis A vaccine, as pharmacies are not permitted to give it, Burstein said. 

 Symptoms of the illness include tiredness, poor appetite, nausea and vomiting, abdominal pain and fever followed by dark-colored urine, light-colored stool and the yellowing of eyes and skin. It takes a few weeks for symptoms to develop.  

The illness is transmitted through oral-fecal transmission, through eating contaminated food or water, sexual intercourse or other close contact with an infected individual. There is no treatment for Hepatitis A; the illness typically runs its course and the person recovers without any long-term effects.

Anyone who begins to show symptoms of the illness should contact their primary care physician and call the county’s Department of Health at 716-858-2929.