1.   At midday on Friday, local mechanical engineers from a test course for trucks on the outskirts of town were trading jokes at the restaurant about the hepatitis outbreak.

2.   Hepatitis outbreak worries strawberry growers.

3.   The food issue gained prominence earlier this year after imported Mexican strawberries were blamed for a hepatitis outbreak among schoolchildren in Michigan.

4.   Apart from the hepatitis outbreak, he said, the lack of domestic heating had caused cold epidemics.

5.   UST officials said the hepatitis outbreak was caused by water which came from the state-run Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System.