Hepatitis C Research Show Spread Pattern

Hepatitis C Research Show Spread Pattern

A recent study made in Greece showed that every injecting drug user with hepatitis C will pass the disease on to at least 20 others, and to 10 within the first two years.

Scientists say that the results of this study will help to establish a pattern that shows how hepatitis C spreads, and that it will prove very helpful in battling the disease.

Close to 180 million people have hepatitis C worldwide, with most of them being unaware that they carry it, thus spreading the virus to others.

The research was done on 943 patients and the data was obtained over a period of five years from 1995 to 2000.

To help get much better data researchers led by Dr Gkikas Magiorkinis from Oxford University included genetic information of the hepatitis C virus taken from close to 100 samples.

The research showed that drug addicts that inject are the main spreaders, and that the first two year after being infected are the ones in which the disease spreads the easiest because of the high concentration of the virus in the infected organism.

The study should help clinics and campaigns that deal with hepatitis C prevent and diagnose people much faster, thus reducing the risk of infection and cutting treatment cost in the long run.

Posted by George Daniels on Sunday February 03 2013, 4:50 AM EST. Ref: BBC. Link. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Health. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0