Hepatitis C is a growing concern worldwide

• Many don't know they're infected
• Promising treatment
• Related stories and sites

November 9, 1998
Web posted at: 10:48 p.m. EST (0348 GMT)

CHICAGO (CNN) -- Hepatitis C infections could cause a more than five-fold increase in the demand for liver transplants over the next decade, according to a study released Monday.

University of Florida researcher Dr. Gary Davis estimates a 528 percent increase in transplant demand by 2008, due in large part to hepatitis C.

In addition, Davis predicts the number of people dying from hepatitis C will triple over the next decade, to about 30,000 a year.

The study, released at a meeting of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, was based on a projection of current infection rates.

Davis said that "cases with major complications of chronic hepatitis C will increase dramatically unless effective treatment can be developed."

Davis also predicted the growing number of cases will be "a huge burden on health care resources in this country."

Many don't know they're infected

Hepatitis C, a blood-borne viral disease, affects about 170 million people worldwide, 4 million of them in the United States. In about a third of all cases, the disease leads to a chronic infection that can cause fatal liver disease.

The sources of the disease include intravenous drug abuse and blood transfusions given before blood banks began screening for the virus in the early 1990s.

The new study said it appears only a small percentage of people with chronic infections are being treated. Most don't even know they're infected.

Susan Schulz of The Plains, Virginia, thinks she may have contracted hepatitis C from a blood transfusion during childbirth.

By the time she discovered it, the illness was so advanced that her only remedy was a transplant.

"When you're first talked to about it," Schulz said, "you think, 'They must be talking to somebody else. This can't be me.'"

Promising treatment

Some progress has been reported in treating less advanced cases. Interferon, used alone or with other drugs, is the most common therapy, but it has some disadvantages. African Americans, for example, are far less likely to respond to current treatments than other groups.

A study published last month in The Lancet, a British medical journal, said interferon in combination with ribavirin could be a breakthrough in treating chronic cases of the disease.

Meanwhile, the medical community is calling on the government to intensify efforts to alert pre-1992 transfusion recipients that they may be at risk for hepatitis C.

Reporter Louise Schiavone and Reuters contributed to this report.