- "[Hepatitis C] is already the main reason for liver
transplants and is predicted to be killing more people than Aids by 2020,
yet only a quarter of victims know they are infected and just 1 per cent
are receiving treatment."
-
- Hospital specialists criticised the Government yesterday
for failing to act to curb the spread of hepatitis C, a lethal blood-borne
virus.
-
- The silent epidemic of hepatitis C is officially estimated
to have infected 200,000 people in the UK - four times as many as HIV -
and more than 100 people are being infected each week.
-
- It is already the main reason for liver transplants and
is predicted to be killing more people than Aids by 2020, yet only a quarter
of victims know they are infected and just 1 per cent are receiving treatment.
-
- The seriousness of the threat was recognised by the Department
of Health when it published a strategy for dealing with the epidemic 18
months ago and promised an action plan by the end of 2002. But a year later
nothing has been done.
-
- Graham Foster, professor of hepatology at the Royal London
Hospital, said: "There is much disappointment at the lack of an action
plan. Absolutely nothing is happening."
-
- A new study, to be published shortly, will show a dramatic
increase in the number of new infections, Professor Foster said. Last month,
the Health Protection Agency revealed that 5,901 cases of hepatitis C infection
were diagnosed in 2002, compared with fewer than 1,000 in 1994.
-
- "The figures are horrifying. Over the next 10 to
15 years liver disease and cancer rates will soar. The Government is talking
the talk but it is doing nothing else," Professor Foster said.
-
- The outlook for sufferers has been transformed in the
past decade as new drug cocktails have increased the proportion of patients
who can be cured to 60 per cent. Other countries have established programmes
to identify and treat patients. France treats 15,000 patients a year compared
with 2,000 a year in Britain.
-
- "In the UK we are just discussing it and hoping
it will go away," Professor Foster said.
-
- Most victims are unaware they are infected, but up to
30 per cent will suffer severe symptoms caused by chronic inflammation
of the liver including cirrhosis, liver cancer and death over two to three
decades.
-
- William Irving, professor of virology at Nottingham University,
said Britain was one of the few countries with a policy on hepatitis C.
-
- "But it is disappointing we haven't seen an implementation
plan or any funding for an implementation plan. There are a lot of people
out there with hepatitis C and there is a window of opportunity to treat
them now before they develop liver disease."
-
- One reason for neglect of the disease is thought to be
its "low-life" association with intravenous drug use - it is
spread by shared needles.
-
- But increasingly it is also being spread by "social"
drug use such as snorting cocaine. Straws used to snort cocaine are often
passed around and may become contaminated by blood from the nasal epithelium
caused by the corrosive, alkaline nature of the drug.
-
- The virus can also be spread through sex, though this
is rare, and through skin piercing, tattooing and shared use of razor blades
and toothbrushes. It is 10 times more infectious via blood-to-blood contact
than HIV, but less infectious than HIV via sexual contact.
-
- Many victims became infected through experimenting with
injecting drugs decades ago and now lead stable lives with families and
jobs. Others were infected through blood transfusions.
-
- The virus was identified in 1989 but screening of blood
was not introduced until 1991, and many sufferers do not know how they
became infected.
-
- Charles Gore, chief executive of the Hepatitis C Trust,
said: "There was a lot of experimentation with intravenous drug use
at the end of the Seventies and early Eighties - far more than most people
think. There was a huge influx of heroin after the Iranian revolution in
1979 and experimentation involves someone showing you how to do it and
using their syringe. Now those people are starting to come through with
chronic liver disease.
-
- "The Government is dragging its feet on this - there
is a lack of political will and a fear of the cost implications."
-
- A treatment based on interferon can eliminate hepatitis
C from the body, and a new slow-release version was recommended by the
National Institute for Clinical Excellence last month. But the virus is
symptomless in its early stages, meaning efforts have to be made to test
and identify those infected. There is also a shortage of trained nurses
able to give the treatment which lasts up to a year.
-
- A spokeswoman for the health department said: "The
hepatitis C action plan will be published in due course."
-
- © 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
-
- http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health/story.jsp?story=477285
|
