Hepatitis A is a fairly rare disease, but it’s popping up all over the country in recent weeks and months.  The Tennessean reports:

Three students from Greenbrier High School have been infected with the hepatitis A virus in recent weeks, according to the Tennessee Department of Health.

State health officials are offering free vaccines to both students and staff members at the school on Friday, May 5.

The clinic will offer the free vaccines from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. School officials are distributing educational fact sheets about the disease at the school today and tomorrow.

“Outbreaks of this type of hepatitis are very, very rare,” said Shelly Walker, with the Tennessee Department of Health. “We don’t expect for this to be spread further into the community at large. Folks not associated with the school do not need to be concerned or frightened about.”

Hepatitis A has caused recent scares in Alabama and Indiana.  In May, the Vanderburgh County, Indiana, Health Department and the Indiana State Department of Health investigated a case of Hepatitis A in a food worker at the Lone Star Restaurant located in the Eastland Place Shopping Center at 943 N. Green River Road Evansville IN, 47715-2418. 

In March, The Alabama Department of Health alerted customers of McDonald’s, located at 2000 McFarland Blvd, Northport that they may have been exposed to hepatitis A virus through an infected employee. The health department administered vaccines to hundreds of people who had eaten food from the restaurant during the time that the infected employeed worked. 

And in February, the Central District (Idaho) Health Department announced that an employee at the Cheesecake Factory on Milwaukee Avenue in Boise Idaho may have exposed some diners at the restaurant to Hepatitis A between December 13, 2011 and January 22, 2012.