The process of providing immunizations to restaurant employees reached the news media through one of the employee's contacts. The report reached wire services and was broadcast nationally. Additional reports were received directly from individuals who were diagnosed in their home areas. Exposures occurred in all cases from January 3 through January 13, 2001. The Orlando, Florida area often presents an opportunity for cases to be dispersed to many states and countries.
Severity of illness ranges from mild to that of one death due to fulminant hepatitis.
Several cases were hospitalized. One case was so severe as to have been placed on a waiting list for a liver transplant, however he has since recovered. As these cases were reported, public health workers and laboratories were contacted with a request to forward serum to the Bureau of Laboratories in Jacksonville for forwarding to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta for RNA comparisons. Those results are still pending. Blood samples for 17 of 82 food workers working during the exposure period were also obtained.