Public health authorities in Detroit are raising the food safety alarm: anyone who bought prepared food at the Whole Foods store at 115 Mack Ave in midtown should seek medical attention, since they may have been exposed to Hepatitis A. While details are fuzzy, they know that the span from Oct. 6-10 is when any exposure would have happened.

So far, one employee in the prepared-foods department and one customer who ate food from that department have confirmed cases of the disease. Hepatitis A can be transmitted either by a person in contact with food who has poor hygiene, or by contaminated food.

As far as authorities know, this isn’t liked to recent problems in regional production facilities for Whole Foods, but is limited to the one store in Detroit. However, they’re still looking into how the employee and the customer contracted the disease.

If someone who was exposed to the disease is treated with either the Hepatitis A vaccine or immune globulin within two weeks of exposure, they can avoid illness. People who were exposed should visit their own physician, and the local health department in Detroit is also holding clinics for people who may have been exposed.

While some people with the disease have no symptoms at all, others remain ill with fever, fatigue, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, jaundice, and joint pain for as long as six months.

Viral Hepatitis – Hepatitis A Information [CDC]

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