3,000 PUPILS WILL RECEIVE IMMUNIZATION : KERN COUNTY TRIES TO STEM HEPATITIS.

Byline: Karen Maeshiro Daily News Staff Writer

Striving to ward off further spread of the hepatitis A virus, Kern County health officials plan to immunize 3,000 students in the Mojave Unified School District.

The action comes after 10 cases of the disease have been reported in the California City area since June, and an incident last week at Robert P. Ulrich Elementary School in which a volunteer with hepatitis A helped prepare food for a class Thanksgiving party, officials said.

``The vaccinations are a way of protecting them from future infections to hepatitis A,'' said Dr. Portia Choi, deputy public health officer with the Kern County Department of Public Health. ``The vaccinations are a proactive approach to stem any larger situation.''

The vaccinations will be offered to children ages 2 to 18, and permission will be required from parents and guardians. The shots will be administered at schools. Details of the times and places will be announced later, Choi said.

The Kern County Health Department reported Thanksgiving Day that a female volunteer with hepatitis A helped prepare food for 24 students and some parents in a Robert P. Ulrich School class for a pre-Thanksgiving party Nov. 26.

The students and other people known to have been exposed were contacted by county health officials and advised to go to their health-care provider to get an immune globulin shot, an antibody against the virus that will prevent infection in people who have been exposed, Choi said.

``It's a way of protecting someone who has been recently infected,'' Choi said.

A Los Angeles County health department official said there's been no hepatitis A outbreak reported in the southern Antelope Valley.

Los Angeles County overall had 1,033 cases of hepatitis A reported last year, and 1,193 reported in 1994.

``We definitely have cases of hepatitis A. We do every year. As far as outbreaks, there's nothing that really stands out,'' said epidemiologist Michael Tormey. ``There's nothing out of the ordinary.''

The recent rash of California City cases are being attributed to poor hygiene, Choi said.

Causing an inflammation of the liver, hepatitis A is highly infectious, carried in the feces and spread through poor hygiene habits. It is rarely fatal and the vast majority of people with hepatitis A recover completely.

(Hepatitis B is potentially a more serious form of viral liver infection, commonly acquired through exposure to contaminated blood - as by drug users who share needles.)

The hepatitis A virus can be carried on an infected person's hands and can be spread by direct or sexual contact, or by eating or drinking food or beverages that were handled by the infected person, officials said.

Symptoms include fever, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, dark-color urine, yellowing or jaundicing of the skin and whites of the eyes, and extreme fatigue, Choi said.

But some infected individuals show no symptoms, experts say.

Infection can be prevented by hand washing after using the toilet and after diapering children and before preparing food, Choi said.