Why Are Baby Boomers More at Risk for Hepatitis C
Deaths from hepatitis C have reached an all-time high in the Us, according to preliminary information released last week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
In 2014, at that place were 19,659 deaths from hepatitis C, upwardly from nineteen,368 in the previous twelvemonth.
That's a startling 78 pct increase from the 11,051 hepatitis C-related deaths that were recorded in the U.S. slightly more than a decade earlier, in 2003.
In a carve up study, published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, CDC researchers too written report that more Americans now die from hepatitis C infections than from 60 other infectious diseases — including HIV, tuberculosis and pneumococcal affliction (various Streptococcus infections) — combined.
Both studies relied on information collected from death certificates, which frequently underreport hepatitis C. So the number of deaths related to this viral infection is probably even higher, says the CDC.
Most hepatitis C-related deaths in the U.S. are among baby boomers, who are often unaware that their chances of having the disease are much greater than that for people born in earlier or later on generations.
New cases of hepatitis C, however, are occurring primarily among young adults who inject drugs — particularly young, white adults living in rural or suburban areas of the Midwest or Eastern The states, co-ordinate to the CDC.
Minnesota's numbers
The numbers reported in concluding week's studies are troubling, only not surprising, said Kristin Sweet, a hepatitis expert at the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH), in a phone interview with MinnPost.
"Nosotros've know about the prevalence of hepatitis C in the U.Due south. for quite a few years," she said. "But the fact that so many people are dying from it compared to other infectious diseases — that's a new style of looking at it that I hadn't thought of before."
The CDC estimates that three.five million Americans are currently living with hepatitis C. In Minnesota, well-nigh 45,000 people are believed to be infected or to accept been infected in the by, according to MDH officials. The median age of infected Minnesotans is 56.
Xx-nine percentage of Minnesotans with past or present hepatitis C infections live in Minneapolis or St. Paul, while another 31 percent live in the suburbs of those 2 cities. The rest — twoscore percent — live in Greater Minnesota.
How information technology spreads
Hepatitis C commonly spreads when the blood from an infected person enters the body of someone who isn't infected. If left untreated, the disease can atomic number 82 to long-term and life-threatening health problems, including liver damage, liver cancer and liver failure. In the U.S., hepatitis C is a leading cause of cirrhosis and liver cancer, besides as the nearly common reason for liver transplant surgery.
One-half of Americans currently infected with hepatitis C are unaware that they have the disease, according to the CDC. That'southward because symptoms — such equally bruising and bleeding easily, fluid accumulation in the belly, bloated legs and weight loss —tend to announced only tardily in the course of the disease, when the virus has already done serious damage to the liver.
Today, hepatitis C is passed from person to person primarily by sharing needles or other equipment used to inject drugs, although the disease can besides be spread through unprotected sex activity with an infected person. Some other, less common method of getting infected is past receiving a trunk piercing or a tattoo in an unregulated — and unsterile — setting.
Before claret screening became available in 1992, the infection was usually contracted through donated claret and transplant organs. This is ane of the main reasons why babe boomers between the ages of 55 and 64 are at such bang-up risk of having — and dying from — the disease.
The importance of screening
"Anyone born between 1945 and 1965 should get screened one time, simply to make sure they're not at take chances of the long-term consequences of cirrhosis and liver cancer," said Sweet.
Anyone who has injected drugs — even once — also should be screened, she added.
Screening involves a routine claret test. If the virus is plant in the blood, and so additional tests are done to appraise impairment to the liver.
Both acute (new) and chronic hepatitis C infections tin can exist treated. The newest treatments — drugs such as Sovaldi, Harvoni, Zepatier and Viekira Pak — have a cure charge per unit of more than ninety pct. (Previous treatments were only most l percent constructive.) The new drugs are extremely expensive, however. A full handling regimen tin can range from $54,000 to $94,000, and many insurers will not cover the cost until a patient'south liver is damaged.
Fortunately, in that location are signs that those costs are coming downwardly. And when that happens, nosotros should brainstorm to run across fewer Americans dying from this preventable — and curable — illness, according to Dr. Jonathan Mermin, director of CDC's National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention.
"Once hepatitis C testing and handling are as routine as they are for high cholesterol and colon cancer," he said in a released argument, "nosotros will see people living the long, healthy lives they deserve."
FMI: You tin read nigh the latest nationwide hepatitis C statistics on the CDC's website, where you lot'll too find information nigh preventing, diagnosing and treating the disease. For Minnesota's statistics, go to the MDH website. The CDC likewise offers an online hepatitis chance assessment that takes only a few minutes to consummate.
Source: https://www.minnpost.com/second-opinion/2016/05/hepatitis-c-deaths-reach-all-time-high-and-baby-boomers-are-greatest-risk/
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