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he Health Ministry, the Bogor Health Agency and authorities from the Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB) have set up a special team to conduct monitoring at the college campus following an outbreak of hepatitis A, which has infected at least 28 students.

The ministry'€™s director general for disease control and environmental health (P2PL), Mohamad Subuh, said on Sunday that the team had been working to discover the source of the outbreak and how the virus had spread across the campus and its vicinity.

'€œWe have moved quickly and will see the results soon. However, we believe that the virus spread through contaminated food or eating utensils or the drinking water supply at the IPB campus canteen or dormitories,'€ Subuh said.

To determine the primary source of the virus, the team had taken samples, including mineral water samples from two dormitories and canteens as well as water for bathing from two dormitories, for further examination, he said.

He added that the ministry expected that results from the tests would be available in two weeks.

The hepatitis outbreak made news on Wednesday after IPB officials reported to the Bogor Health Agency that several students in one dormitory had fallen ill.

The students reported symptoms such as fatigue, nausea, vomiting, muscle ache, joint pain and light fever.

They were treated at several nearby hospitals, including Karya Bhakti Pratiwi, Medika Graha, Hermina and Bogor General Hospital.

Laboratory tests showed that the students had contracted hepatitis A '€” a contagious disease caused by a virus that is spread through food and water.

The health agency declared a health emergency (KLB) within the campus until Thursday, when it detected no other outbreaks outside the IPB area.

The Health Ministry'€™s Subuh added that the public did not need to worry about the KLB status as the ministry had confirmed that there were no similar outbreaks reported outside of Bogor.

'€œWe just need to be more careful and aware of food and drink hygiene in our surroundings, particularly during this rainy season,'€ Subuh said.

Meanwhile, IPB deputy rector for academic and student affairs Yonny Koesmaryono said the campus had conducted medical checkups on a large number of IPB students since Friday.

Out of 480 students that underwent the checkups on Friday and Saturday, 46 were suspected of having Hepatitis A and were therefore referred to Karya Bhakti Pratiwi Hospital for further examination.

However, Yonny confirmed that blood and laboratory checks on the 46 showed that they had not contracted hepatitis A.

'€œIPB itself is conducting a quick response on the sources of food, such as canteens. We have deployed a team to clean all 137 campus cafeterias today [Sunday],'€ Yonny said.

He added that the team had also conducted a campaign to promote hygiene among all food vendors operating inside the campus.

Next Thursday, the team will also target food vendors outside of the campus.

'€œIt will be our target to conduct more aggressive monitoring of the canteens,'€ Yonny said.

'€œBut we also urge the students to be more careful when choosing their food. It'€™s quite difficult because students usually aren'€™t that worried about the food they eat.'€ (foy)
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