Baby Boomers should test for hepatitis C

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the governments public health agency, is adopting a new approach for screening for hepatitis C for those born between 1945 and 1965. They recommend all Baby Boomers get tested for the virus because many are not aware they were at risk for infection. The idea is to avert major increases in liver disease and deaths in the U.S. By Angela Covo angela.covo@gmail.com If you were born between 1945 and 1965, the CDC says you need a one-time test for hepatitis C virus. The final recommendations, released earlier this week in the CDCs Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, explain that one in 30 Baby Boomers are infected with hepatitis C and probably are completely unaware they were ever at risk. Studies show many Baby Boomers were infected with the virus decades ago, but were never screened. Globally, about 170 million people are chronically infected with virus. According to the National Institutes of Health, most people recently infected with hepatitis C do not have symptoms. About 1 in 10 experience yellowing of the skin (jaundice) that gets better. Most people infected with hepatitis C develop a long-term (chronic) infection. For many patients, chronic hepatitis C is a benign viral infection and usually there are no symptoms. Some patients develop liver cirrhosis (permanent scarring of the liver) and may suffer from complications due to cirrhosis or die. Hepatitis C causes serious liver diseases including liver cancer (the fastest-rising cause of cancer related deaths) and is the leading cause of liver transplants in the United States. The idea is to discover the infection and clear it before it causes serious damage. A one-time blood test for hepatitis C should be on every baby boomers medical checklist, CDC Director Dr. Thomas R. Frieden said. The new recommendations can protect the health of an entire generation of Americans and save thousands of lives. Before this week, CDC suggested testing only individuals with certain known risk factors for hepatitis C infection. More than 2 million U.S. baby boomers are infected with hepatitis C more than 75 percent of all American adults living with the virus. Many have been infected for more than 30 or 40 years. According to the report, every year more than 15,000 Americans die from hepatitis C-related illness, such as cirrhosis and liver cancer. Deaths have been increasing steadily for over a decade and are projected to grow significantly in coming years. CDC estimates one-time hepatitis C testing of baby boomers could identify more than 800,000 additional people with hepatitis C. And with newly available therapies that can cure up to 75 percent of

infections, expanded testing along with linkage to appropriate care and treatment could prevent costly consequences of liver cancer and other chronic liver diseases and save more than 120,000 lives. For more information about hepatitis, visit www.cdc.gov/hepatitis.