Medical English Listening Practice: Hepatitis C

http://www.lanarkshirehivandhepatitis.org/living-with-hiv-and-or-hepatitis/your-stories/storie
s/shabanas-story/
Activity 1: Watch the video (Shabana's story) without reading the transcript. Write the
headings you would use for this video:
1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Activity 2:
How would you define these terms?
fed up
unsterile
irritable
support for someone
taken aback
contract a virus
good many years
aches and pains
approach the GP

Activity 3:
Read the patient information and watch the video. Think of 3 to 4 sentences you could use
to summarise the information for a patient.
Facts at a glance
Hepatitis C is a virus that is carried in the blood and can cause serious damage to the liver.
Its mainly spread through contact with the blood of an infected person,
Sharing drug-taking equipment

Currently, the greatest risk of infection in this country is through sharing equipment for
injecting drugs. If you've ever shared equipment for injecting drugs, even if you only did it
once or twice, or a long time ago, you could be at risk of hepatitis C.

Medical English Listening Practice - Hepatitis C by Virginia Allum 2017

 Blood transfusions and blood products

If you received a blood transfusion before September 1991 or blood products before 1986 in
the UK, you may be at risk of infection. Today, all blood and blood products are screened for
the virus.

Improved financial support has recently been announced for those who acquired hepatitis C
infection from NHS-supplied blood or blood products before safety measures were in place.

Less common ways the virus is passed on:

From infected mother to baby, before or during birth
Through unprotected sex with someone who has the virus
By medical and dental treatment abroad, where unsterile equipment may have been used
By tattooing, ear or body piercing, acupuncture, electrolysis and semi-permanent make-up
where unsterile equipment may have been used
By sharing razors or toothbrushes that may have been contaminated with blood from
someone who is infected
'Non-A, non-B' hepatitis

Hepatitis C was only discovered in 1989, so some people who have hepatitis C may have
been given a diagnosis of non-A, non-B hepatitis before then.

If you have been diagnosed with non-A, non-B hepatitis you should get tested for hepatitis
C, if you havent already been.

There's no vaccine, but you can avoid the risk of hepatitis C infection if you know how.
In around 3 in 4 people infected with hepatitis C, the virus will develop into long-term
(chronic) infection.
You cannot get hepatitis C from everyday contact such as holding hands, kissing, hugging or
sharing toilets, crockery or kitchen utensils

Activity 4:
Now, look at the information on the Healthcare Professional site and compare it. List the
risk factors and suggest reasons why each risk factor may be an issue in reporting
symptoms. Suggest ways to overcome these issues. For example, some people think that
abnormal liver function is the result of alcohol abuse - some communities do not allow
alcohol consumption so this result may be a problem. To overcome this, it will be necessary
to explain the effect of the Hep C virus on liver function.

Medical English Listening Practice - Hepatitis C by Virginia Allum 2017

 Medical English Listening Practice - Hepatitis C by Virginia Allum 2017
Activity 5: Breaking News! Read the texts and answer the questions that follow.

Text A: New cure for hepatitis C excites doctors

http://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/new-cure-for-hepatitis-c-excites-doctors
/news-story/4bba8f794dcdba4d1b853dcf2cadeedb

March 12, 2014

More than 200,000 people in Australia and New Zealand will soon be cured of hepatitis C,
thanks to new drugs that have sparked excitement among liver specialists. The drugs have a
90 per cent success rate for the most common form of the disease and have few, if any, side
effects.

The present treatment has horrible side effects, takes up to 48 weeks to work and has a 60
per cent cure rate. The new pills, which are taken for 12 weeks, have been approved in the
US and Europe and are expected to be available in Australia and New Zealand by the end of
2014.
"It's amazing. It is one of the greatest turnarounds in clinical medicine that we have seen in
decades," says Professor Gregory Dore of the Kirby Institute and St Vincent's Hospital,
Sydney.
Few people can tolerate the current treatment method, which involves weekly injections
and daily pills, says NZ Professor Edward Gane, a speaker at the 2014 meeting of the Asian
Pacific Association for the Study of Liver in Brisbane on Wednesday.
"Fewer than two per cent of those diagnosed receive treatment each year."
Around 220,000 people in Australia and 50,000 in NZ are living with the disease, says the
Auckland City Hospital transplant specialist. Hepatitis C mostly affects people who
experimented with intravenous drugs in the `60s, `70s and early `80s and there has been a
steady increase in serious liver disease as they age.
They are at increased lifelong risk of cirrhosis, which can lead to liver failure or cancer. They
can also develop non-specific symptoms including extreme tiredness or lethargy. About 90
per cent of infected Australians had been diagnosed, but the diagnosis rate in NZ was low,
he said. He urged people who believed they were at risk to see their GP for tests.
"Identifying people with hepatitis C is now of the utmost importance along with assessing
their liver disease and preparing them for treatment.
"It may be possible to eradicate hepatitis C in both Australia and New Zealand within the
next 20 years."

Medical English Listening Practice - Hepatitis C by Virginia Allum 2017

Text B: Alarming increase in Hep C deaths among baby boomers
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2014/s3963961.htm
(you can listen to the ABC programme online if you are in Australia)

1. What is the difference between the current treatment and the new treatment for
Hepatitis C? Write Not mentioned if there is no information.

Current treatment New treatment

cure rate

% of people treated

side effects

duration of treatment

form of treatment

2. What do the following expressions mean?

a. drug taking was rampant ______________________________________________

b. one of the greatest turnarounds

c. experimented with intravenous drugs

d. baby boomers

e. play a sort of Russian roulette

f. It is reminiscent of the HIV epidemic

g. succumb to liver failure

Transcript
ELIZABETH JACKSON: Australians who contracted hepatitis C decades ago are only now
starting to develop terminal liver disease at an alarming rate. A trend that public health
experts warn could have catastrophic consequences for the health system.

More than half of Australia's 250,000 hepatitis C sufferers are baby boomers who
contracted the virus back in the 60s and 70s when experimental drug taking was rampant.

Medical English Listening Practice - Hepatitis C by Virginia Allum 2017

Most of these patients have, until now, remained in good health, but after 30 or more years
living with the virus the number getting liver cancer or waiting for liver transplants is now
dramatically on the rise - leaping from 10 per cent to 40 per cent in the past five years.

Deborah Cornwall with this report.

DEBORAH CORNWALL: Jack Wallace is a public health researcher, and just one of 250,000
Australians with hepatitis C who have largely tried to ignore their disease, just hoping they
are not among the one in three who will die of liver failure.

JACK WALLACE: I've been putting off treatment for the last 20 years because the current
treatments, the side effects of them are too hard for me to contemplate actually doing
treatment.

DEBORAH CORNWALL: Until now, treatment has had such a low success rate and the side
effects so brutal even doctors advise patients to play a sort of Russian roulette and wait for
a better treatment to came along, hopefully before liver failure claims them first. That new
treatment has now arrived. Professor Geoff McCaughan is one of Australia's leading
hepatologists.

GEOFF MCCAUGHAN: It will be revolutionary. We are talking about 95 per cent cure rates
with one or two tablets a day, essentially without any side effect.

DEBORAH CORNWALL: The combination therapy has already been rolled out in the United
States and, just last month, parts of Europe. It's also come at a time when the first
generation of hepatitis C sufferers - the baby boomers - are starting to succumb to liver
failure in unprecedented numbers.

Professor McCaughan:

GEOFF MCCAUGHAN: It's not quite what we found in the early 80s with HIV infections, but
at times it is reminiscent. In the last five years we've started to see the takeoff. If you go
back 10 years, hepatitis C as a cause of these problems that we were seeing was down
around about less than 10 per cent and now it's 40 per cent. Liver cancer associated with
hepatitis C is the most rapidly growing cancer in the Western world. So 40 to 50 per cent of
liver cancer is hepatitis C; 40 to 50 per cent of adults requiring liver transplant, hepatitis C.

DEBORAH CORNWALL: Professor McCaughan and his colleagues are lobbying hard to have
the new therapy subsidised in Australia, starting with the most vulnerable patients.
(To Professor Geoff McCaughan): How far away are we from actually being able to access it?

GEOFF MCCAUGHAN: If you walk in the door with chronic hepatitis C infection, academically
and medically you should be able to get these medications at some stage within the next
one to three to five years. The problem at the moment is the cost of these drugs in Europe
and the United States is extraordinarily high - you know, $90,000 to $100,000 or even more.

DEBORAH CORNWALL: Hepatitis C is also such a stigmatised disease there are no high
profile lobby groups or poster boys, and sufferers themselves tend to keep their condition a

Medical English Listening Practice - Hepatitis C by Virginia Allum 2017

secret. Jack Wallace says such is the lack of understanding of the disease, few Australians
even realise most people with the virus are in fact very middle class citizens.

JACK WALLACE: Once you disclose you've got hepatitis C, you are publicly disclosing the fact
that you've injected drugs, and injecting drugs in Australia is a shameful thing to admit. It's
really interesting - it's been 30 years since I last injected drugs, and most of the people that I
interact with on a daily basis would have absolutely no idea of my history.

GEOFF MCCAUGHAN: They're lawyers, some of them are doctors, some of them are
bankers, musicians, tradesmen - you know, the late 60s and 70s was a pretty wild time.

ELIZABETH JACKSON: Sydney hepatologist Professor McCaughan speaking there to Deborah

Cornwall.

Answers

fed up tired of doing something

unsterile contaminated or surgically unclean
irritable annoyed
support for someone help someone, e.g. when they are unwell
taken aback be surprised about something
contract a virus become ill with a virus
good many years quite a long time
aches and pains general term for pain in an unspecified part of the body
approach the GP go and talk to the GP

2. What do the following expressions mean?

a. drug taking was rampant = was very common
b. one of the greatest turnarounds = dramatic change in something
c. experimented with intravenous drugs = to try taking a drug
d. baby boomers = people born post World War II, usually 1946-1964
e. play a sort of Russian roulette = take a lot of risks, e.g. as if playing a high stakes gambling
game
f. It is reminiscent of the HIV epidemic = it reminds people of something
g. succumb to liver failure = give in to or die from

Medical English Listening Practice - Hepatitis C by Virginia Allum 2017