HIV Digest	HIV Digest Archive

New US hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections have fallen 90 percent since 1989, when the virus was discovered, due to improved blood supply screening and less sharing of contaminated needles by intravenous drug users. However, annual HCV mortality is expected to triple from its current 8,000-10,000 people in the next 10 years, according to Centers for Disease Control (CDC). That is because long-dormant infections that are surfacing today in baby boomers were contracted from the mid-1960s through the 1980s, when infection rates skyrocketed. According to infectious disease experts, many HCV carriers are baby boomers who likely caught the virus from risky behavior in their youth.

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The majority-- two-thirds-- of HCV carriers are white, male baby boomers who live above the poverty line, CDC says. Of those HCV-infected, CDC estimates 60 percent acquired the virus by sharing contaminated syringes or needles while using drugs; 15 percent got it through unprotected sex; and 10 percent were infected through transfusions before a blood test to detect HCV was developed in 1992.

Of the as many as 4 million of Americans who have HCV, 20 percent will clear the virus without drug therapy; most infected people-- some 80 percent-- are asymptomatic, CDC says, potentially delaying treatment and infecting others. Current drug treatments are effective in about 50 percent of chronically infected patients and aim to reduce HCV in the blood to prevent cirrhosis, a buildup of scar tissue that blocks blood flow to the liver, and end-stage liver disease. At later stages, patients need a liver transplant. There is no HCV vaccine.

Editor's Note: from the Wall Street Journal